The Heartblood Circle
by Diello
Summary: A Night Elf huntress takes her first voyage to the Eastern Kingdoms and finds herself immediately embroiled in a plot centering around a secluded cave in Dun Morogh that will lead her to battle both the Forsaken and the Scourge.
1. Epigraph and Prologue

"War does pass a cup from man to man so that he may drink. And the just accept it gladly and they are warmed. And the implacable grab for it roughly and behold, they are scorched."

-Medivh, _Aphorisms_

"All roads lead."

-Velen

--

Streams of snow whipped around the pines that clustered in the valley. In the blizzard these trees were diminished to wavering smudges, and the sun itself was a pool of soft, pale fire beyond the wall of mountains that sealed the valley in. It was the harshest storm seen in years, rough even for a land as inescapably rugged as Dun Morogh. Sight was obscured and hearing muffled, and so even the troggs retired to their caves and the Trolls to their huts, to feed from their stockpiles, whet their claws, and wait.

The storm moved in a constant breath through the valley. The only audible sound was its desolate keening. The only visible movement was the shimmering of the dark shapes of the trees through the snowclouds.

The valley was deserted. It might never have been populated by more than boars at all. But even so-- against the trunk of one of the pines rested a staff.

The staff stood there, unmoving, snow heaping up around it.

Lower and lower the sun dipped behind the mountains. White became blue-gray, and night fell.

The staff stayed. And then-- a sparkle of orange was moving in the distance, swinging, growing in size and intensity, hovering just a few feet from the ground. It wove left and right, its holder searching for something. The light didn't travel from one cluster of trees to another. Its holder was searching not by sight, but by intuition.

The light grew into a potent flame, and its holder emerged from the shadow near the tree where the staff lay. The flame-holder was a Gnomish girl dressed in Ironforge furs, and beneath that, in spellcaster's robes. She cupped the ball of orange fire in her hand, both seeing by it and drawing warmth from it. She moved left, right, eyes faraway and focused, until she stood immediately before the staff. She unsheathed a hand from her furs to pick it up, turning it over in the firelight.

"There you are," she murmured to herself. "At last. How did you get out here?"

The Gnome grinned in relief and turned away, departing in the direction she'd come. Her footprints behind her were already filling over with new snow, her light dissipating into a patchy corona among the drifts. She was gone, almost gone, when there was a thump and her light was extinguished altogether.

Minutes passed.

The cutting winds swept the snow higher and higher up the trunks of the pines. In a nearby copse, the sound of a falling branch was just audible.

Then a new light was approaching. It was smaller and far less radiant, a barely-perceptible yellow gleam, and it rocked up and down as it came.

Then the second light-holder became apparent: a thin man, near-skeletal, his frame wrapped up in a billowing black cloak. He wore no furs, and his pale hands were unflinchingly exposed to the storm. As he stepped through the snow, he searched out a clear path with the luminance of his yellow eyes. Draped over his shoulder was a small bundle, wrapped in Ironforge furs and beneath that, in spellcaster's robes.

The cloaked man moved deeper and deeper into the brooding isolation of the woods, until he was at the foot of the wall of mountains that formed the border of the valley. He approached the slope of the ridge, and seemed to be preparing to head straight up its near-vertical face until he disappeared into a crack on its side.

A greenish fire struck up within the fissure, building quickly to a strong blaze, and there was a thud as the man threw his bundle to the floor. Two pacing figures, one hunched and emaciated, one tall and of sweeping stride, were barely discernable as shadows on the snow.

"A uden hir ash gol aesire, an Veld Vexistra." His voice was flat and dry, like a scrape against the dusty wall of some forgotten sepulcher.

"Speak Human to me, Gracchus." The second voice was sudden, strong, and commanding, betrayed only by the slightest rasp, a tarnish on its regal iron.

"I have the one… you wanted," said the first man, haltingly. "A…an Veld Vexistra."

The second voice did not spend itself on a reply. Instead, the light of the green fire flickered as there was a rush of movement.

Out in the night, the windstreams hurtled on, building hills and furrows out of the snow. Their voices ensured that the sound of tearing never made it more than a meter from the cave's mouth.

The storm was terrible, but had not yet peaked. It was still building.


	2. En Route

Skai Mistweaver rested her head against the Gryphon's neck as it broke through the clouds. From here the ground, the keep, the ramparts razed and rebuilt countless times, the gray-helmed guards, were all invisible, replaced by the soft dome of the overcast sky.

Elune be praised. She needed the rest.

Skai cut a graceful but imposing figure. Her leather-over-mail armor left her free to maneuver as she pleased, and at night, in brown and midnight blue, she could become all but invisible. Even when she let herself be seen, though, she was hardly more likely to draw aggression from a sentient creature: even the most bravado-drunken Orc could see that she was as honed and as deadly as a Darnassian knife.

While hunting, Skai usually concealed her hair under a cap or helmet, but now, secure above the clouds, she had let it fall free, and it trailed behind her head like a blue-violet comet's tail.

Skilled though she was, Skai was still a fledgling, only now leaving her home in Ashenvale for the Alliance-controlled lands in Azeroth. Help was needed, was always needed, in Kalimdor; in fact, there was some talk of either fortifying or razing her hometown of Astranaar, which had come under the hammer of the Horde repeatedly in the past months. Both ideas pained her. But Astranaar was only fifty leagues from the new Horde capital of Orgrimmar, and there had been too many deaths. Yet despite all this, she dearly hoped that Archdruid Staghelm would somehow delay the decision until she could return to visit her unaltered birthplace a final time.

After all, it was Fandral Staghelm who had ordered her teacher, the Shan'do Icharu Oakwalker, to send her to Azeroth in order to "strengthen bonds with our allies overseas."

Skai closed her eyes and cast her mind back to five days past, before those five long days of travel during which half the world had passed below her feet.

She had been on a grassy slope outside of the Cenarion Enclave in Darnassus with her Shan'do. She had been pacing, intense, wrapped in imaginings of the voyage she was about to be sent on. Snickers, her pet hyena, was sitting off to the side, her own inner tension causing him to stand watchfully, scanning the serene, violet-hazed forest around them for aggression.

Icharu knelt at the top of the hill and sank his hand into the ground. He drew up a small mound of soil, brown-black and loamy.

"Think, Thero'shan Mistweaver," he said to her. "Soon you will be striding over Azerothian soil."

"Is this really necessary?" asked Skai. "If the Archdruid really intends to send someone as a kind of political maneuver, why not pick an Elf who actually _wants_ to go to the Eastern Kingdoms? The Temple is crawling with priests who would just _love_ to see the Mage's Sanctum in Stormwind." _And who would just _love _to add a bit of arcane magic to their repertoires,_ she added mentally, but kept it to herself.

Icharu was silent for a moment as he poured the handful of earth back to the ground and brushed his hands clean. "Undoubtedly true, Thero'shan. I believe that I could raise an entire legion of priests and priestesses to travel east on a day's notice. But the Archdruid's instructions were to send one, and only one of the trainees under my charge."

Skai huffed. There had to be some route out of being used as a prop for public relations with the Humans. "Surely you can talk to Staghelm. As I've said, it would be more useful to him to dispatch someone with a jot of enthusiasm for the mission. Besides, I'm certain he would love a chance to rob the High Priestess of one of her acolytes."

"Once more we are in concordance, Thero'shan. But I think not of what would most benefit the Archdruid. Staghelm is a politician, and, as his predecessor Malfurion said, war is too important to be made charge of the politicians."

Skai began to interject again, but Icharu held up his palm.

"I think of what would most benefit you, my pupil. Is this not a teacher's duty? You have shown a thirst for exploration and an unwillingness to let your duties become muddied by petty ambitions. You are not a politician. You are a huntress, and not just of beasts and of Orcs but also of fresh knowledge and of well-reasoned conclusions. Therefore, you will go abroad. Remember, no great one was ever forged who stayed at home."

Skai sighed and glanced down at Snickers, who was scratching his ear. The Shan'do Oakwalker did have a point, and, although she was still full of frustration and suspicion about the whole enterprise, she yielded.

"I see that your decision to pass down Staghelm's order is well-reasoned, Shan'do. At any rate, more well-reasoned than the order was originally."

"I'm glad I could show you that, Thero'shan." Icharu's amber eyes glinted with irony for a moment. It was not the first time she had questioned his instructions and been promptly shown up as a result. Now embarrassment simmered alongside her previous frustration, and she strained to show no sign of either.

"Has Staghelm informed you of the details of my departure?" she asked.

"The task was delegated, but, yes, I am aware of them. You will go to Auberdine, and from there travel by ship to Menethil Harbor. Lodgings have been arranged for you in the rural town of Goldshire, nestled deep in the Alliance heartlands. You will go by Gryphon from Menethil to Ironforge, and then on to Stormwind, which is barely a hundred fathoms from Goldshire, a forested place which the Archdruid believes will be suitable for an Elf. You can depart for Auberdine tonight."

"Very well," said Skai, her emotions growing more controlled. Already she was thinking of, instead of taking the Gryphon out of Menethil, hiring a mount and traveling straight north to Alterac, where her axe would find ways of yet further damaging a few undead bodies. Yes, that experience would indeed be sweet. Whether in a Kalimdorian forest or an Azerothian one, she knew she could outmaneuver a shambling bag of bones without breaking a sweat. Part of her knew that the plan was risky, but anything was better than being Staghelm's diplomatic pawn, tucked away in some burg that probably hadn't seen real combat for decades.

Skai nodded again. "Very well. And my animal?"

Snickers perked up a little, raising his spotted muzzle. Other hunters frequently referred to their pets as "intelligent as an Elf," but Skai had always liked Snickers' perceptivity more than anything. In a place like Astranaar, one quickly learned that a brain containing the complete history of Kalimdor was as useless as an Orc's if it had been skewered by an arrow. Snickers had a sharp eye and a dependable gut, and Skai's attention to him, in turn, had saved her a wounding and more on one or two occasions.

Icharu nodded back. "I took that up with the Archdruid, and he assures me that one of his assistants will be able to devise a talisman which will allow you to summon your pet from and return him to Darnassus on short notice."

"Good," said Skai, thinking that possessing such an object might alone make up for Staghelm's entire nonsensical mission. "And what are my objectives once I reach Goldshire?"

_"Oh, nothing specific,"_ Skai beseeched Elune to be the answer.

"Try to rub elbows with someone important. It shouldn't be difficult. Many of the Human officials in Stormwind are veterans of the Second War. See if you can meet a warrior like Tirion Fordring or Marcus Jonathan. It shouldn't be hard, and it should be enough to keep the Archdruid content for a few moons."

Skai rankled at this, but returning to the thought of axing open a Forsaken skull was enough to counteract it.

_Thunk! Guuuuurgh._

"Certainly, Shan'do," said Skai, grinning broadly.

"Good," said Icharu. "I await your missive from Goldshire." He raised his palm to her again, it still specked with soil. "Elune'Adore, Thero'shan Mistweaver."

Skai bowed to him. "Elune'Adore, Shan'do Oakwalker."

Minutes later Skai was at her dwelling, packing her weapons, her traveling clothes, parchment and writing supplies, and a number of other items that she would require or at least was loath to leave behind. She had entrusted Snickers to her friend Meridia who, being a trainee rogue, wasn't dismayed by the possibility of the hyena's disappearing and reappearing at random intervals.

As she was standing at the harbor outside of Darnassus, waiting for the ship that would ferry her to Auberdine, she was accosted by a rather harried-looking druid who gave her a small leather bag "from the Archdruid," and disappeared. Inside was, to Skai's unexpected delight, a stone statuette in the form of a prowling hyena. There was also a scrap of parchment with a scribbled note to the effect of that, in order to activate or the reverse the summoning call with which the statuette had been imbued, she simply had to intone, "Pet, summon!" There was also an even more hurriedly-written postscript noting that the voice trigger would only work if spoken in the original Darnassian, "Tal, asto're!" and that the Common translation would be ineffective.

Skai didn't think that this needed to be mentioned. Although Common had been taught since the end of the Third War, Darnassus had hardly become so cosmopolitan that the Humans' nuanceless language had become interchangeable with its own native tongue.

And although Skai had been studying Common for over seven years now, as she boarded the boat to Auberdine, she its sole passenger, she was running over every half-important and half-likely phrase she had ever learned.

"Where is the inn?"

"Where is the battle?"

"Retreat!"

"Attack!"

Ever since her first skirmish with a Troll just outside of Astranaar, Skai had secretly wanted to learn a phrase or two in Orcish with which to confront her foes before cutting them down.

But, truth be told, Skai had had precious little combat experience when stood alongside many other fighters, even those in the relatively civilian city of Darnassus. Fandral Staghelm, even as irritated by him as Skai was at the moment, had been a military officer for over eight thousand years, and had masterminded the campaign which had kept the dread Qiraji at bay. Her own Horde conquests she could number on one hand: a Troll outside of Astranaar, two Trolls on the Zoram Strand, an Orc in the Barrens and, sweetest of all, a stinking undead hiding in the Astranaar lake, her dispatchment of which had almost certainly saved a dozen lives.

But even so, there were Elves at Silverwing Hold who slew Horde every day.

The dark waters lapped up against the sides of the boat, and she resumed pacing, turning the hyena statuette over and over in her hands.

_"Tal, asto're!"_

But soon her frustration would find a vent. She would ride up to Alterac and hunt Forsaken. As for Icharu and Staghelm-- could she bluff her way past them? Perhaps. She'd think on it later. At the moment, she was content to think of the undead who, she understood, had turned the Human kingdom of Lordaeron into a smoking pit, and to think of-- _thunk!_-- reducing their numbers by one.

Gradually, the edge of the Auberdine dock rose up out of the grayish fog to meet her. Skai put the statuette back in its bag and stuffed it into her pack.

The trip to Azeroth, across the Great Sea, had been far less serene. It had been another uncrowded voyage, but of her three co-travellers, one had been a rather overzealous young Human mage, and two had been Elven priests who had seemed a little too eager to discuss the arcane with this mage, for Skai's liking, anyway.

The Sundering, during which her race and her continent had been torn apart, had occurred more than ten millennia before her birth, but for her the wounds stung afresh. The two bastardized races created by the lust for arcane power had resurfaced only within Skai's lifetime, and every time she heard of a Naga assault on Auberdine, or, worst of all, when she had found out that her once-cousins, the Sin'dorei, had defected to the Horde, had determined to skulk with Orcs and Trolls and bloodsucking undead rather than give up their dark powers, her blood boiled. To her, these young priests who consorted with magi, and these druids who hobnobbed with the magical elite in Stormwind, dishonored the thousands upon thousands buried under the sea those many, many moons ago.

The Humans, however, she was less incensed by. They had not experienced the corruptive power of arcane magic, and, anyway, their motives were impenetrable to her. The only Humans she'd ever seen around Darnassus were merchants or dignitaries, and the only ones she'd seen in Astranaar were just passing through on their way to cause mischief in Horde lands. Besides, with a lifespan of a scant century or two, she supposed that they weren't used to thinking in the long-term, that the long-term must be, for them, five-hundred or so years, and that events of even a single millennium ago must be removed to the point of seeming semi-mythological.

But she would gain new insight into this once she set foot in Azeroth. She couldn't fault the Humans for their combat record. In fact, she understood a Human knight astride a horse to rival an Elvish sentinel on a nightsaber in terms of lethality in their respective environments. Just as attempting to ride a horse at full gallop through the jungles of Kalimdor would be madness, so would it be madness to expect a nightsaber to be able to run at speed across an open plain or through a sparsely-vegetated forest. The Dwarves, too, although she found them even more alienating than her three traveling companions, she understood to be nigh-indestructible when fitted out in full armor, and to be formidable smiths as well. The gun, in fact, she knew to be a Dwarvish invention.

Azeroth. She and the two priests slept through the sparkling, sun-drenched days, leaving the mage to himself. To her dismay, however, the Human was able to quickly adjust his sleeping patterns so that he and the priests could prattle about portals and conjuration from sundown 'til sunup.

And then one night, just as Skai had awoken from a deep sleep and was sitting in her cabin, toying with the idea of summoning Snickers out of sheer boredom, she heard a whoop from abovedeck.

There was the sound of feet running through the hall, and a bang on her door. "Elf! We're there!" said the Human in Common.

Soon all four of them were on deck, watching the shape of a stone-and-mortar wall, Human masonry, defining itself out of the fog. Menethil Harbor.

"Whee-oo!" shouted the mage, and sent a shower of ice shards flying out over the water. The priests cheered alongside him.

"I can't wait to stretch my legs and lay hands on a skin of that glorious Dwarven stout. Eh, Elf?"

Skai nodded curtly.

"You ought to loosen up," said the mage, placing his hand on her shoulder and leaning so close to her that she could see every hair of his asymmetrical brown beard without squinting. "Why not come on down to the tavern with me? Saron and Karriath are coming too."

Skai's first thought was to beat the mage to the floor and then possibly to kick him in the stomach until he stopped resisting, but her civil streak had kept on for five long, hard days, no small feat to invalidate now, and she was just too tired to prolong the experience. Besides, she hated to think what would happen if word of an Elvish ambassador throttling Humans reached Fandral Staghelm.

So, Skai closed her eyes and muttered, _"Rodne terro…"_

The mage cocked his head. "What?"

"Just admiring your elegant goatee. Alas, no, I will not be able to accompany you and your companions to the tavern. I have urgent business which will be taking me to Alterac."

"Alterac, huh?" The mage finally took his hand away from her shoulder and stepped back. "I've been there. It can get pretty rough. Sure you're up to it?"

"Yes, I rather think so," said Skai.

The ship drifted to a halt at the end of a long pier leading up to the town of Menethil. She disembarked after the others, receiving glares from the two priests, presumably because they'd overheard, _"Rodne terro,"_ her calling him a scruffy moron.

The town of Menethil was cloistered and damp and salty, and reeked of worry and war. There was a hurried air to the place, and no townspeople to speak of. Only commanders, soldiers, merchants, mercenaries, medics, and travelers. Most were Human, although Skai did catch sight of a Dwarf entering the keep, one wall of which had clearly been bashed in and replaced during some none-too-long ago siege.

She walked up along the road leading around the keep, intending to find a stables where she could hire a mount to take her past the city wall and out to the north, to Alterac. Luckily, the other Menethilians seemed too caught up in their own business to take much note of a Night Elf among them. It was a relief.

Then, wait. Someone was coming toward her. It was a Human woman with neat brown hair and wearing a pair of green goggles. She had come from a low awning beneath which nested two testy-looking Gryphons.

Skai almost groaned out loud.

"Good evening," said the woman. "You must be Skai Mistweaver."

Skai nodded. "Alah darnana dor."

The woman extended her hand. Ah, here was a custom with which Skai was familiar. She extended her own hand, and the two shook.

"I'm Shellei Brondir. I run the aviary, such as it is, for Menethil. Captain Stoutfist got a letter from, uh, 'Ikku Oakwalker,' asking us to make certain you got on your way to Stormwind all right."

_Shan'do,_ thought Skai. _Always a step ahead of where I give you credit for._

"Yes, certainly." There was no way out of it. If she declined, Brondir would inform the captain, who would send word back to old "Ikku," who would recall her. Even if she went renegade and started living out of a tree in the woods, she knew that somehow Icharu would have her back in Darnassus within a week to have her wrists slapped.

Skai forced a smile. _Thunk. A Forsaken falls dead. It'll happen, somehow._

"I'm ready to travel."

"Great, great. You can just take ol' Proudclaw here. They're about like Hippogryphs, so you shouldn't have any troubles."

Skai approached the indicated Gryphon, which gave her a stoic glance and then looked away. She hopped up onto his back and slung her traveling pack over him, fastening it behind her.

"Oh, one thing," said Brondir, approaching the Gryphon. "We've got a storm, bad, out over Ironforge. You're going to have to go around it, out over the ocean. We can still get you to Stormwind, though. Or Sentinel Hill, out in the sticks, if you'd prefer a shorter ride and a bit of a walk."

Skai suppressed a sigh. "I'd prefer Sentinel Hill."

"Fine," said Brondir. Then, to the Gryphon, softly. "All right, boy. Sentinel Hill. Sentinel Hill. Go."

The woman stepped back and the Gryphon began to lope out along the water's edge, and the ground was diminishing beneath her. Menethil spread out, the ship at the docks, the keep, and the wall's broad stones, and what must have been the tavern winking merrily up at her until she broke through the overcast clouds and was finally, really alone.

The recollection had burnt up a good few minutes of her time. She could now see down through fissures in the cloud, water, and at the edge of her vision, snatches of waves lapping at an icy coast. The air was cold with the storm that the flight master had mentioned, and she hugged close to the Gryphon again, this time to draw on its warmth.

The waves passed beneath her, and the coastline receded.

_Where to now?_

Skai had seen many maps of the Eastern Kingdoms, but even so she really did know little about the forest of Elwynn, her eventual destination. It was home to Stormwind City, the largest and most impregnable Human outpost, as well as other notable locations such as the Northshire Abbey. The land was relatively safe, the nearest Horde base being Thaurissan, some hundreds of leagues removed, and little more than the odd marauder was seen within Elwynn's borders. There was a group of bandits, the Defias Brotherhood, which, she gathered, engaged in at least a noticeable amount of pillaging around the towns. She guessed that, although the Defias were apparently nowhere near enough of a force to pose any kind of threat to Stormwind, they could not be wiped from Elwynn entirely because too many Alliance troops were tied up in defending high-risk outposts or fighting in Arathi or Alterac.

But what would _she_ do? She could wet her blade on some bandits until she managed an audience with a notable Stormwinder, at which point she hoped she would be free for at least a few weeks. Then it was on to Alterac. Or perhaps to Stranglethorn Vale, to the south, where the Trolls were numerous and poorly-organized.

Skai smiled slightly. Decisions, decisions.

Only one thing still bothered the young huntress. She was traveling to the capital of a nation that openly condoned the use of arcane magics. Maps even showed a "Mage Quarter" inside of Stormwind City. The thought of magi popping in and out of visibility and summoning elementals left and right almost made her queasy. But it didn't matter. She'd faced down the _undead_, for Cenarius' sake. She'd just have to meet a general before migrating back into the wilderness, to some secluded and often-assaulted outpost.

Skai meditated for some minutes on these thoughts before drifting off again. She came to several times, it being remarkably hard to sleep while on any flying mount, and looked down to see the water continuing, now with no coastline, now with that coastline of ice, the clouds thinning, the coastline turning more temperate, and then water, water, water, until Skai blinked open her eyes and found herself flying over dry land the same tawny color as the Gryphon's back, over abandoned farms and small camps of dog-like creatures that must have been gnolls, then up over a ridge. They were very close to the ground now, and Skai saw a lone guard tower atop a rise, surrounded by tents, vehicles, and milling figures. Sentinel Hill.

The Gryphon touched down and slowed to a trot, and Skai jumped off, slinging her pack down with her. The Gryphon glanced back at her and then continued on to sit alongside a goggled Dwarf who gave Skai an inexpressive nod.

There did appear to be some activity going on in Sentinel Tower, with Humans of all descriptions running in to barter for supplies or out to wreak havoc among the hills. Not two fathoms from her, a dark-skinned mage let loose a fireball that fried an admittedly rather nasty-looking bird.

"Deadmines!" came a voice from above. Skai looked up to see three figures looking down from the turreted crown of the tower. "Anyone want to go to the Deadmines? We need a healer! Pallies? Any Pallies?"

Skai elected to stay clear of Sentinel Tower for the time being, and to strike out northward, for Elwynn, without delay, where she could at least establish a temporary base of operations.

Skai walked out onto the road, passing by an ominously well-maintained ballista, and headed north. She saw the occasional carrion bird and belligerent-looking boar out in the hills, but none of them came anywhere near the road. Skai was hardly going to venture out into the tufty wastes to go after them herself. A farmhand with a pitchfork could handle one of those boars.

A barren field to her left was swarming with demented-looking harvesting machines which were being picked off by a mage and a rogue, but still she continued on.

The sky was a velvety oceanic blue, through which a dusting of stars shone. The Azerothian moon was full and pure. Skai was rested, alert and striding easily along her path. The air was almost still. It was a good night out for hunting.

Skai crossed a bridge and almost immediately the terrain changed. Patches of lush green grass spread across the hills, trees sprung up, and at once the previous desolation was half-forgotten. There was a tower and a fortified keep guarded by two Human footmen. The night was clear to her, but the footmen stood next to a burning torch and squinted apprehensively out of their visor slits into the forest.

Skai approached, deliberately snapping a twig so as not to startle them too much when she appeared.

The footmen started. "Who goes there?" one asked in Common.

Skai walked into the glow of the torch. "A friend of the Alliance," she said. "A traveler from the lands of Kalimdor."

"Oh," said the first footman. "A Night Elf." He slid his visor up to reveal a bearded face. "We've had a few of your type through here."

Skai nodded.

"An Elf came through here a few weeks ago, named, uh, 'Mellikor.'"

Skai shook her head. As if she knew every single Night Elf between Kalimdor and Azeroth.

"Have you been having any particular trouble lately? Other than the usual with the Defias?"

"Oh, out questing, are you?" said the footman.

"We don't get many Defias out here," put in the second footman. "That's more out east of here."

"There _is_ Hogger, though," said the first one.

"Oh, good point," said the second footman, sliding up his visor as well. He was clean-faced. "Hogger."

"Hm?" asked Skai, hardly daring to hope that Hogger might be a notorious Ogre warlord or, in fact, anything more than a forest bear glorified to villainous status.

"Hogger," said the first footman again. "He's a gnoll. Damn big one. I haven't seen him, but Brandis has."

"Brandis has," said the second footman. "It's his night off, though."

"Hogger and the rest of his pack have been killing swine around here for damn near a year. Last week Hogger and a gang of his gnolls killed one of the guards, there," nodding toward the tower, "Westbrook Tower. Name of Ryleigh Carson. Damn fine soldier."

The second footman nodded. "Damn fine soldier. Not many gnolls could challenge someone trained in Stormwind. Mostly we just shake 'em off our ankles."

"That's right. But Hogger's a big bastard, and he's got friends. Must be a touch smarter than your average gnoll. Mostly they just get together to fight or gamble with rocks."

"Mostly they do, yeah. You want to get your hands dirty around here, you kill Hogger, bring back a piece of him to the marshal in Goldshire, and you'll be a better man than most of the treasure-hunting blockheads who come through this way."

"A better woman," said the first footman.

"Right," said the second. "Going to Stormwind, then, are you?"

"Yes," said Skai.

"You want to watch yourself there, missy. Lot of decent folk in Stormwind, but a few warlocks and other shady characters too."

The first footman nodded. "'Sright."

Skai bowed to them. "Thank you for your assistance. I assure you, you won't have to worry about your gnoll for much longer."

The footmen nodded. Skai wondered whether to farewell them in Common or Darnassian and decided, given the mystique with which they apparently associated the Night Elves, on the latter.

"Asha'falah," said Skai, and melted back into the shadows.

"Damn fine soldier," murmured one of the footmen behind her, slamming his visor down.

_Hogger._ The name stank of primitivism and depravity begging to be extinguished, she thought-- or perhaps it was just her enthusiasm getting the better of her. Regardless, she shouldered her pack and sped along the road, as silent and quick as she could be. She passed a Dwarven warrior and a Human priest going the opposite direction, and in the darkness she could tell they had mistaken her for an exceptionally tall Human. Skai passed over a bridge, under which ran a clear blue brook, catching a whiff of some strange Azerothian fish from the water.

Elwynn was no Ashenvale, that was certain, but Skai could feel a certain appeal from it nonetheless. The ground was clean, and the hills were full of life and growing. The trees themselves were rather runty, few more than seven or so Elf-heights in stature. But even so, Skai could feel the rhythm of the ecosystem around her, the steady inhale-exhale of the forest. There was no more battle here than a little natural pruning, and it showed in the serenity of the night creatures.

As Skai kept on, she glanced to her right and caught sight of a man crouched behind a tree. He wore black wraps, and a red bandana hid his face. He shuffled noisily, switching his dagger from one hand to another.

_So this is a Defias,_ thought Skai without breaking stride. _It's a wonder they manage to steal enough to live on._ She passed by him unnoticed.

Within a minute she had crossed into the outskirts of Goldshire. The town itself was quite small but, like Sentinel Hill, was a hub of activity even at night. There was a small pond, a few azure-thatched cottages, and a rather large smithy, built itself like an oversize firing-kiln, with walls of thick gray masonry, and a tremendous bellows and a smokestack. Like its fellows, the smithy's roof was blue-thatched.

Skai emerged into the light of the torches, throwing off her Shadowmeld and scanning the buildings to identify which one might be the inn. She attracted a few furtive glances from some of the younger Humans and Dwarves, but as in Menethil they seemed too busy, on the whole, to gawk wholeheartedly, and the elders among them had apparently become jaded to the esotericism of the Night Elves.

There it was: a swinging wooden sign, "The Lion's Pride Inn." Skai entered and found herself in a mid-sized enclosure. The innkeeper was apparent, a balding but heavyset man who stood at the bar alongside a few vendors, but there the resemblance to any Night Elven inn ended. The place was crowded and noisy and hot from the hearth in the near wall, and several warriors sat around one of the far tables, drinking from flagons of mead and singing loudly and unevenly.

This would be the perfect place, Skai realized, to find someone who would accompany her to take on Hogger.

As much as Skai would have enjoyed returning alone with the gnoll's severed head, Hogger's pack could consist of any number of gnolls, and Skai was not so foolhardy as to think that she could scout and engage what was potentially a small army with only her axe and her hyena.

She stood by the door and scanned the crowd. There were the singing warriors, four Humans and two Dwarves, all tough, certainly, but too full of revelry to make dependable cohorts, and at this point far into their cups anyway. There were a pair of battle-hardened magi who sat in the corner, sipping from goblets of Pinot Noir and talking under a hush. But Skai was less than eager to enlist the help of two professional arcanists, and in any case she didn't expect that they would be too appreciative of anyone's butting in on their conversation. There was a priest sitting rather sullenly by himself and sipping on a flagon, his mace lying all but discarded on the floor beside him. Finally, there was a man, cloaked and hooded even in the heat, his face dusted heavily with stubble, drawing from a long pipe. He was probably a rogue, Skai decided, and looked himself more interested in just sprawling lackadaisically in the corner than pursuing a rogue gnoll.

Skai didn't find _any_ of them suitable. It was a pity. In a Kalimdorian inn, one could usually contact a fit and clearheaded warrior or druid on half a moment's notice.

Skai crossed the lobby and addressed the innkeeper in as much of the Human idiom, as she could manage.

"Good evening."

The innkeeper turned. "Oh, hello. You must be…"

"Skai Mistweaver of Astranaar."

"Oh, hello, Miss Mistweaver. I received a letter about you. Your room is prepared, second one on the right."

"Many thanks. Tell me, do you know of the gnoll Hogger?"

The innkeeper shook his head.

"Should you overhear any mention of him, please notify me immediately."

"Sure, miss. Can I interest you in some supper?"

Skai considered this. "Actually, I'd like to replenish my travel rations if I can."

Skai purchased a dozen slices of cornbread and four flasks of melon juice, stuffed them into her travel pack, and went to the stairs. As she set foot on the first step, someone called out to her.

"'Eeeeeey, Night Elf!"

Skai turned. It was one of the drinking warriors, a blonde Human.

"'Ey, don't go, Night Elf girly! C'mover here!" His fellows laughed and elbowed one another.

"Table dance!" yelled one of the Dwarves.

Skai froze. She stared at them, drinking in their defenselessness. There were six of them, true, but they were tipsy and would not draw their weapons on an unarmed lady. She could take all of them on with ease.

Suddenly, the innkeeper interjected. "You keep it down."

"Awww, c'mon, man!" whined one of the warriors.

"'E's right!" put in the Dwarf. "We're just 'avin' a little fun!"

"You keep it down," said the innkeeper, "or I'm cutting off your grog for the night."

A collective "awww" went up, but aside from a baleful glance from the blonde warrior, Skai was able to ascend the stairs unscathed.

_Be thankful,_ she thought. _Innkeeper so-and-so just saved you a sound thrashing._

Skai entered her room. It was small, but the canopied bed was soft and clean-looking. The curtains were drawn. Skai had a moment's peace.

She threw off her traveling pack, opening it onto the bed. First she had her supplies, the cornbread and the juice. Then she laid out her axe and her mithril-barreled rifle, her two weapons, and the statuette of Snickers, her third. She brought out a pouch of shot and three explosive traps. Finally she had a forgotten wedge of Darnassian bleu cheese which had quite gone off since the commencement of her journey, a stack of parchment, an inkpot and a pen, some envelopes, a wood-handled brush, and a leather cap for hunting.

Skai sat on the foot of the bed, dismantled her rifle, and began cleaning it with the brush. For the thousandth time in the past week, she mulled over her plans.

She would find someone at least halfway-competent (perhaps Mellikor was still around) with whom to slay Hogger. She would reap the rewards of that, be they a bag of silver or simply a measure of prestige. She would go to Stormwind, say a hello to the first man she saw with an insignia higher than Corporal, report it to Icharu, and then strike out for wherever seemed most isolated and dangerous.

Or, she conceded, perhaps something completely different would happen. Only that dusk she had been planning to run to Alterac. By the time Hogger's head lay severed, who could tell just how much things would have changed?


	3. Hogger

Skai was looking down the detached barrel of her rifle when there was a knock at the door.

"Enter," she said.

It was the innkeeper. "Excuse me, miss. There's a man downstairs, says he's looking to go after the gnoll you mentioned."

Skai snapped the barrel back in place and sprung to her feet. Unexpectedly, and for the first time since before Icharu had called her aside at the Cenarion Enclave, things were taking a turn for the better.

"Would you like me to show him up?" asked the innkeeper.

"No thank you," said Skai. "I'll come down in a minute." She stuffed her hair into her hunting cap, hung her ammo pouch on her belt, strapped her axe to her back, pocketed a single slice of cornbread and a flask of melon juice, and tied the bag holding the statuette to her waist.

The innkeeper nodded and stepped aside. Skai was growing to like this man perhaps more than anyone else she'd met in Azeroth. He was polite, but she could tell by his unostentatious steadiness that he would not be easily cowed in a confrontation.

Skai passed by him and bowed to him briefly. "Thanks again. Ande'thoras'ethil."

The innkeeper smiled to her and let her descend the stairs. The common room of the hotel had changed considerably during the intervening minutes. The noisy sextet of warriors had departed, although the secretive mages, despondent-looking priest, and scruffy rogue all remained.

At the foot of the stairs stood a young man, dressed in red and white robes and a golden cloak. A sword hung at his left side, a wand at his right. His skin was very pale, even by Human standards, and his long hair and his reasonably well-groomed beard were a lustrous gold in color. On a bloodthirsty warrior or rogue the cut of his features would have implied belligerence, but here they gave more an impression of worry and slight awkwardness.

But what struck her most about him was, by the look of his robes and his wand, he was a spellcaster of some kind, an arcanist. Priests did not carry swords as a rule, so she assumed him to be a mage.

He looked up at her. "Oh. Greetings." He extended his hand to her. She shook it. "Innkeeper Farley tells me you're interested in going after Hogger."

"I am," said Skai.

"Splendid. I'm Diello, incidentally."

"Skai Mistweaver." She stepped out into the floor of the lobby and became aware of the fact that the pipe-smoking rogue in the corner was watching them intently. "Shall we leave immediately?"

Diello nodded. "We could do with a third member, but I doubt that any of these nimrods fit the bill."

Apprehensive as she was about him, she had to admit that she liked his unabashedness.

They walked out into the street of Goldshire. Skai turned toward the westward road, but Diello halted her.

"Give me a moment," he said. "Let me check the smithy."

Diello ran up the steps of the smithy, stuck his head in, and shouted, "Gnolls! We're going after gnolls! Anyone? Anyone?"

Diello disappeared into the building. Skai stood bemused. Was this how they did things in Azeroth?

After a few moments, Diello descended the steps of the smithy, his cloak flapping in the breeze. With him was a brown-haired man dressed in silver plate and mail. A hefty warhammer and a shield emblazoned with an emblem of the sun were slung across his back.

"I've found someone," said Diello. The new man regarded Skai quietly. His features implied aristocratic blood, but he was still youthful enough that that hadn't taken control of the impression he made. "This is Xavier of the Argent Dawn." A Paladin. "Skai Mistweaver, from Kalimdor, presumably. Skai, Xavier. Xavier, Skai."

They set off west under the stars, toward the Westbrook Garrison and the woods around it which were Hogger's haunt. Apprehensive as she was about the mage Diello, the presence of Xavier reassured her somewhat. Paladins followed a kind of nontheistic deity known as the Light, and although this concept was scarcely less alien than that of openly condoning the use of arcane magics, it was nowhere near as distasteful.

The three of them traveled in silence, and the bustle of Goldshire faded into the night behind them.

They came upon a torchbearing footman wearing the blue tabard of Stormwind. He nodded to them. Xavier nodded back.

"How long have you been in Azeroth?" asked Xavier once he had passed.

"Not long," said Skai. "A matter of hours."

"And already you're out, carving your way through the local brigands," said Diello. She wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic.

"Not yet," she pointed out.

Another moment passed. The flame of Westbrook Garrison became apparent in the distance.

"There isn't much to do around here," said Diello. "It's just gnolls, kobolds, and the Defias. You should go east, to Duskwood. It's crawling with Scourge and Ogres."

_Scourge?_ Skai thought. _As good as Forsaken._

"I fear you've gone somewhat astray in your thinking," said Xavier. "Though the glory and the high-flown valor may come from slaying the undead, isn't there as much honor in purging Azeroth's heartland of its undesirables?"

Diello scoffed. "I've rarely met a Paladin who didn't lust after Horde blood on the border's battlefields as much as any warlock."

Xavier paused uneasily. "Why this talk of warlocks?"

"Quiet," said Skai. They were now only a dozen fathoms from Westbrook Garrison, but to their left, in the depths of the woods behind the tower, Skai thought that she could see something furry and hunched. She turned and looked squarely out inot the darkness, unstrapping her rifle from her back. Xavier brought out his warhammer and Diello raised his hands.

"What is it?" asked Diello.

Skai squinted. "It's far-off yet. On that hill. A gnoll, I think."

Xavier put his hammer on the ground and unslung his shield. "Give us a moment to prepare."

Diello nodded. "Keep an eye on it. If we're going into battle with a pack of those things, there's something I'll have to do."

Skai fingered the bag with the statuette, considering whether or not to bring the hyena into this fight. Snickers' night vision was better than a Human's, but still inferior to her own, and she didn't want to put him at risk.

Diello was kneeling and had uncorked two gourd-bottles. He shook the first bottle very gently, pouring out a curving line onto the packed dirt of the road. Skai sniffed the air and was just able to make out the scent of powdered turquoise. Diello kept moving the bottle, shaking it gently, until a circle was formed.

"What's this?" asked Xavier.

"Shhh," said Diello.

Xavier shot Skai an incensed look, before returning to Diello. Skai wasn't sure what she was missing. "What are you doing?" he demanded again.

"We're about to go into battle…" said Diello, his voice distant with concentration. "I'm tipping the scales in our favor… If you don't object…" Diello corked up the first bottle, having completed two concentric circles, the larger one only about a foot in diameter, and began to pour out an even more delicate stream of powdered quartz, writing runes between the two circles.

Xavier took Skai's arm and led her away from the circle. "Did you know about this?" he asked.

"What?" said Skai. "I thought this kind of arcane magic was encouraged in Azeroth."

Xavier shook his head furiously. "This is nothing so tame. Your friend is a warlock."

"A warlock?" Skai was taken aback. She knew that the Orcs, the Forsaken, and the mad Sin'dorei encouraged the use of demon magics in their ranks, but the fact that it had spread this far and this openly into Alliance lands was a revelation to her. She took another glance back at Diello, who had almost finished the inscription. "So that must be a summoning circle."

"And who knows what he intends to call forth from it. Or what price he is paying to do so." Xavier turned back toward Diello. "You damn your own soul!"  
Diello didn't look up, putting a finishing touch on the bustle of a rune. "My soul is mine to do with what I will."

"Your soul is of the Light, and belongs to the Light."

Diello stood up, inspecting his work. "Then the Light shouldn't have given me the ability to choose what to do with it."

Xavier took a few steps toward Diello. "Listen, friend. Every young warlock believes that he can control the forces of the Twisting Nether, that he will be able to draw upon them while giving over nothing of himself. They are always proven wrong."

Diello stood back and held out his hands. He murmured words directly down toward the summoning circle, words that even Skai could not make out. A pinkish luminance, pale but with a hint of substance, like a mist of light, began to spray up from the inscribed words bound between the two layers of the circle. There was no flash, almost no sound of any kind, only a high-pitched grunt, as a small blackish creature tumbled out of the mist. It took a few steps toward Skai, paused, and cocked its head at her.

"Lothar's beard…" breathed Xavier.

"He's an imp," explained Diello. "His name is Kal'nos."

Kal'nos was wiry and of a sooty color, with yellow-green eyes, and four silver rings hanging from one pointed ear. Foggy green flames danced around his feet as he jumped to and fro.

"Quiet," said Diello to the imp. "We're hunting." He knelt and scraped up as much of the turquoise and quartz as he could. "Skai, did you keep track of that gnoll?"

Skai glanced back at the hill where the creature had stood. She had been, quite understandably, completely distracted from the silhouetted gnoll, and it had disappeared.

"I think it's retreated down the opposite side of the hill," she said. "Let's go."

Xavier took an uneasy look at the imp. "I'll thank the Light if I see the next morning intact."

Xavier held up his shield and brandished his warhammer. Skai rested the barrel of her gun firmly in her palm. Diello stood, nodding forward to his imp, who followed him begrudgingly.

Skai took a final contemplative look at the tiny demon. This was the ultimate blasphemy, it was true. But Hogger was out there, and he needed to be crushed. The three of them stepped off the road and into the darkness of Elwynn Forest.



The silence grew into a palpable tension as they journeyed. Even Skai was not entirely certain where the nearest gnoll might be, or even if they had yet been alerted to their presence.

They slowly crested the ridge of the hill where the gnoll had stood just minutes earlier. Skai, tallest of the three, was first to see over into the forest beyond, and when she did she shrank back reflexively.

There were no fewer than three ragtag gnoll campsites. The gnolls themselves clustered around smoking fires, mumbling and yipping to one another. Their tents were barely more than a few scraps of hide tied over a branch frame, and around each tent were scattered boxes of stolen loot.

Skai narrowed her eyes, looking through the smoke, for a gnoll of unusual size.

Nothing.

"Come," whispered Skai, and Diello and Xavier crept with her to a fallen tree not two fathoms from the nearest campsite. They ducked behind the tree and looked at one another.

Xavier was first to speak. "We should circumvent them. Hogger must be somewhere else."

Diello shook his head. "We can take them. So, we should."

"I agree," said Skai. Seeing the gnolls, fat and happy among their plunder, she knew that it was the only appropriate thing to do. "Who shall make the first blow."

"Well--" said Xavier, but Diello beat him to it.

"I will."

Skai nodded. The three stood up, and Diello hoisted himself over the fallen tree. The gnolls had still not noticed them.

Diello drew back his hands and shouted, "Immolate!" There was a pause and then the warlock rocked back as a fireball sped from his outstretched palms. The first of the three nearby gnolls burst into flame, squealing and running in circles until it finally collapsed onto the tent, setting it on fire. The remaining two gnolls brandished their hatchets and loped up toward Diello with whinnying battle-cries.

"Hup!" Skai leapt over the tree and flipped forward, drawing a bead on the farthest gnoll. Uttering a brief prayer to Elune in her thoughts, she imbued her shot with a concussive charm, and fired.

The gnoll, who was still charging toward them, was glanced by the shot from Skai's rifle, but the magic had taken full hold. He ran slowly, as if through syrup, and was harmless for the moment.

The closest gnoll made a lunge for Diello, and Diello stretched his palms out again, yelling "Corruption!" and the gnoll's skin bubbled open into an array of stinking, gangrenous sores. Diello backed away from a swing of the rotting gnoll, and Xavier leapt into the fray, deftly crushing the gnoll's head. The gnoll fell, disintegrating into a dried, mangy pelt that wrinkled around its bones.

The last remaining gnoll was still charging toward them and, realizing the fate of his cohorts, turned and made a break for the next campsite. A blast from Skai's rifle stopped him, and he was dead well before he slumped, still decelerated, to the ground.

Skai bounded over the gnoll's corpse. The gnolls at the other two campsites, about a dozen in all, were wheeling around in confusion, the noises behind them having been attributable to heavy revelry, but this new silence disturbingly ominous.

One of them picked up its hatchet and looked straight at Skai, baring its fangs.

"Endu'di rifa!" cried Skai with as much ferocity as she could manage, and the gnoll broke eye contact, all but shuffling backward in response.

"Why aren't they advancing?" asked Xavier, rotating, looking for some unapparent threat behind them.

Skai stared out into the crowd of gnolls bristling in the half-light. She didn't know.

"R-r-r-r-r-r-r-rrehhh…"

As soon as Skai heard the guttural, prolonged snarl, she knew why the gnolls had held back. Their champion had just arrived.

Hogger was large, even with the hunched posture of a gnoll standing as tall as she was. His fur was tufty and spotted like any gnoll's, but his eyes were more than just a shiny animalian black. They were dark, like endless tunnels, and Skai knew that Hogger _was_ intelligent, far more intelligent than the others, and that when he killed, he understood fully what he was doing.

Hogger huffed and snorted, holding out a sword that had once belonged to a Westbrook footman.

There was a tense moment. The two regarded one another, Skai's gleaming blue eyes against his fathomless black.

"Go!" shouted Diello, and with a protesting screech Kal'nos launched himself off toward Hogger. Kal'nos gathered his hands full of orange fire, but before a single blast could singe Hogger's fur, Kal'nos had been lifted off his feet. Hogger's jaws closed over the imp's head, tearing him into two limp black shreds.

But this was all the time Skai needed. A blast of rifle fire opened up Hogger's left side, and when the gnoll turned he found himself facing down a stroke as ferocious as his own. Hogger barely parried aside Skai's axeblow with his Westbrook sword, stumbling backward.

"Immolate!" she heard Diello cry, and Hogger's hunched back broke into reeking flames.

There were whinnies from several of the surrounding gnolls, and Xavier lunged forward, smashing one of them in the face with his shield. "Back! Back, you midnight fiends, and cower!" he shouted.

Skai advanced, swinging her ax up to block Hogger's downward stroke, and leaping away from a grasp of his arm. She kicked him in the stomach, but the gnoll was heavy, and he maintained his balance.

Skai leapt forward again, knocking aside Hogger's sword and leaving his front wide open.

"Corruption!" said Diello, and Hogger's face opened up into a dank, cadaverous skull.

"Krrrrrrrreeeeeee!" Flies poured from Hogger's mouth.

Skai kicked Hogger in the face, and his jaw unhinged. The gnoll lumbered forward, still swinging his sword, and Skai was barely able to deflect the blow. The gnoll was looming forward, almost threatening to fall onto her.

Skai raised her axe a final time. Hogger, his sunken eyes smoking, raised his stolen sword and swung.



The Lion's Pride Inn was quiet. Innkeeper Farley had had no one to tend to but a pair of furtive magi, a lovelorn priest, that shifty rogue-like fellow, and now a Gnome mage who only wanted a cup to conjure his water into. Farley swept his cloth across the notched timber of the counter, cleaning and thinking about tomorrow.

Suddenly, the door burst open. In came Skai Mistweaver, Diello, and Xavier of the Argent Dawn. They were battered, bloody, and in Skai's case, slightly singed.

The three sat down heavily at the bar.

"Break out a jug of bourbon, innkeeper," said the Paladin.

"Sure," said Farley, wondering if they had enough silver to pay. "May I ask the occasion?"

"The occasion," said Diello. "The occasion." He brought out a pulped piece of flesh, scabrous and burnt, slamming it down onto the counter.

"Hogger is dead."


	4. Greymantle

The polished arches of the Valley of Heroes gleamed in the keen morning light. A calm roar exuded from the city, as Men, Dwarves, Gnomes, Elves, and Draenei flowed in and out of its gate.

At the end of the titanic bridge that spanned the Valley was Skai Mistweaver. She stood in the shadow of the statue of General Turalyon of the Silver Hand. Her words were inaudible over the sound of the city, but her manner was visibly polite as she addressed General Marcus Jonathan, commander of the Stormwind guards.

Jonathan nodded to Skai, and she bowed to him. They parted ways, and Skai walked back down the bridge, shielding her eyes from the glittering daylight, and made her way out of the city and down into the forest.

Within minutes she arrived at Goldshire. She greeted Innkeeper Farley, climbed the stairs to her room, and brought out an envelope, a sheet of parchment, an inkpot, and a pen. She moistened the pen's nib with her tongue, dipped it into the inkpot, and began to write.

_"Shan'do Icharu Oakwalker, it will please his grace the Archdruid to know that I have recently had an audience with General Marcus Jonathan of the Stormwind Militia. He congratulated me on a victory I recently achieved in the field…"_



The streets of Stormwind wound like a brain's convolutions around the network of canals that divided the districts. A child cast his fishing line down from a bridge, hoping to hook one of the small fish which swam the canals. Passing him by, taking no notice, was a man clad in red, white, and gold robes.

Diello swept his way along the canal's edge, disappearing among the purple-roofed buildings of Stormwind's Mage Quarter.

The Mage Quarter was more extravagant even than the other pristine and animated districts of the city. Its walks were paved, rather than masonry, with mana-fed greenery, and at its heart was the spiral tower that led to the Mage's Sanctum.

Diello wove through the crowds of robed and jeweled figures. The sharp tang of mana smoke hung in the air. He gave a token smile to a pretty young mage he'd almost bumped into, and was on his way. He finally stopped, rather than at the tower, at a small pub which looked almost pointlessly insignificant beside the blazing majesty of its neighbors. Diello entered. The sign above him creaked in the breeze: "The Slaughtered Lamb."

"Morning, Diello," said the barkeep, whose dark, braided locks hung across his chest. The pub was otherwise empty.

"Jarel," said Diello, nodding. He made his way past a table, its candles perpetually burning, mugs arranged across its surface as if to imply that the pub had dozen of patrons, and that they had all merely stepped out for a pipe break. Diello had never seen anyone drink on the first floor of The Slaughtered Lamb.

The clandestine back door that led to the basement of the pub was concealed by a heavy linen curtain. Diello pushed the curtain aside impatiently and descended an unlit spiral staircase. He emerged into a circular room where a large fire burnt. There were five figures in the room, all of them engaged in their separate studies and experiments. One, a brown-haired warlock with a creased, suntanned visage and violet-trimmed robes, looked up at Diello's entry.

They approached each other silently.

"Diello," said the warlock. His voice was quiet but rugged, like sand on leather.

"Sandahl," said Diello. "You sent for me."

"I did," said Sandahl. "Come, sit. I'll send for Jarel to fetch us some drink."

"No," said Diello, shaking his head. "No. I hate to turn aside your hospitality, but I have come here to hear what you have to say to me, to respond if doing so is merited, and then to leave." There was a heavy pause. "Sorry."

"So be it," said Sandahl. "There is a man who knows you, but whom you do not know. He is staying at the Lion's Pride Inn."

"One of yours?" Diello asked.

"No," said Sandahl. "He is no acolyte of ours, or of any other order falling within our knowledge. Our brother Maximillian Crowe, who drinks at the Lion's Pride, overheard this man asking after a tall 'mage,' with a gold cloak and golden hair."

Sandahl cleared his throat and turned to one of the boarded-up windows, through which chinks of dusty light broke. "Brother Crowe was convinced that this man knew you to be no mere mage. And as I have consulted with all my associates in Stormwind, I have concluded that he is of no order of ours. He is of a rank that is foreign, or far more powerful, perhaps less constrained by the formalities that bind our own intimacy with the Nether."

"Or maybe he's just a lone lunatic. What's your point?"

Sandahl, unperturbed, fixed his gaze on Diello. "We know that he reports back to Ironforge. Spackle Thornberry," Sandahl indicated a pink-haired, grimacing gnome pacing about on the opposite side of the fire, "has set up a contact for you in Ironforge, should you accompany our mark there. Find out what you can. Be sure to be on your guard."

"Always," said Diello.

"Remember that if he does represent a… foreign power, eliminating him and claiming what is his would be entirely defensible."

"Always foremost on my mind," said Diello, perhaps with a trace of irony, perhaps not. "I'll be on my way." He turned to go.

"I heard of your victory over that ferocious field-dog, brother," said Sandahl. "You have my congratulations."

"Thanks," said Diello.

He ascended the stairs and emerged into the ground floor of the pub. Jarel was polishing the same spotless mug that he had been when Diello had gone downstairs.

"Interest you in a goblet?" he asked Diello. "On the house."

Diello paused. He gave Jarel a look, and wondered. In The Slaughtered Lamb, it was impossible not to. "No," said Diello. "No, I don't think I shall."

Jarel returned the proffered bottle of Pinot Noir to its shelf, where it continued to age.



Skai stood up and stretched. The sun, though initially blinding, had become all but pleasant over the past few hours. She had just posted off her missive to the Shan'do, and now she stood by the mailbox, regarding the groups of people who moved through the town: Humans, Dwarves, even a blue-skinned Draenei.

Her mind was made up. She would take the silver she had received from the Goldshire marshal, hire a mount, and ride north, north through Dun Morogh, north through the Wetlands, north through Arathi, north through Hillsbrad, and finally, north into Alterac.

Borders and boundaries were always difficult to pin down in a war-torn region like Alterac, but after an hour in the Stormwind library, she had determined that the best course of action would be to set up camp in the woods outside the Forsaken town of Tarren Mill, to pick off travelers as they filtered out.

Skai re-entered the Lion's Pride Inn. It was barely midday, and only two pairs of people sat, talking reservedly: a pair of Draenei Vindicators and, Skai did a double-take, Diello and the pipe-smoking rogue who had been eyeing them last night.

Diello gesticulated, apparently telling a story, which the other man listened to with rapt congeniality.

Against her better judgment, Skai approached.

"Good day," said Skai, once more attempting a Human manner.

"Skai," said Diello. "Sit. I was just recounting our battle."

"And a fierce one it was as well, if your friend speaks true," said the man. His eyes were a pale green, and his smile insistent. Skai thought that he would scarcely have appeared less trustworthy had he been wearing the plate of a Death Knight.

Once Diello had finished what Skai considered a pretty reserved account of their battle with Hogger, there was a lull in the conversation. Skai almost broke in to announce her plan to leave for Alterac, but Diello shot her a strong look that said, _quiet._

After the lull had persisted for several moments, the man in black leant forward, his eyes lighting up as if something brilliant had just occurred to him.

"I have an enterprise… I would rather not reveal it to anyone, but you have shown yourself to be a trustworthy fellow, Diello, in our talks. I have an enterprise in the frozen city of Ironforge."

"Ironforge," said Diello. "Really."

The man nodded. "Yes, yes. Are you familiar with the Rockjaw Troggs?"

"By reputation only," said Diello.

The man turned to Skai.

Skai shrugged. Her dislike of him was growing, and she was surprised that Diello, seemingly so skeptical of others, had been drawn in by him. He'd set himself at odds with a Paladin of the Argent Dawn, an organization so wide-reaching and venerable that even Skai was quite familiar with it, but still he refrained from telling off this unsavory stranger. Of course, she reflected, Diello might be, by nature, only suspicious of the seemingly pure, and apt to let his guard down in the company of the overtly unrighteous. Maybe.

The man went on eagerly, telling of a lost treasure of the Wildhammer Dwarves that the Rockjaws had unearthed, and of his quest to retrieve it from their clutches. When the story concluded, Diello signaled his eagerness to accompany him.

At this point, Skai could stand it no longer. She rose and looked down at the warlock.

"Diello, could I talk to you for a moment?"

"Certainly." Skai led Diello upstairs to her room. They needed privacy for the moment.

"Where did you meet this man?"

"You know the table nearest the hearth in the Lion's Pride Inn?"

Skai paused. "You mean the one we were just sitting at?"

Diello nodded. "That's the one."

Skai glowered at him. "Don't patronize me, warlock."

Diello shrugged. "What's your gripe?"

"Have you _seen_ him?" Skai asked, gesturing a little more wildly than she meant to. "Anu therador mali! From the look of him, I'd rather have an Orc guarding my back! How can you be so… enthused about joining him? Surely your desire for wealth isn't so overbearing." Skai slowed her breathing, knowing she needed to be more rational if she were to talk him out of it.

"I understand how you feel," said Diello. "But I do trust him."

Skai shook her head, barely managing to restrain her frustration. "Why? Has he saved your life?"

"No," said Diello. "In fact, I believe he wants to maneuver me to Ironforge as part of some sort of ambush. I think he may want to kill me. I believe I've judged him sufficiently well that I know what is in his heart: deception. And that is why I trust his nature to be of a certain quality."

"What?" said Skai, utterly taken aback by Diello for the second time that day. For want of something better to do while Diello, she hoped, explained himself fully, she went to the window and swung open the shutters, letting the full daylight in.

"What's his name?" she asked.

"He calls himself 'Greymantle,' but even if I didn't know what I know about him, it would ring false. You are correct, he is a slipshod pretender. Slipshod. He bought me a drink when I entered the inn today, and made as if his interest in me were spontaneous. But I was forewarned."

"By whom?" Skai was instantaneously suspicious of Diello's source.

"An associate."

"One of your Nether-channeling friends? How can you be sure that he and this Greymantle aren't in it together?"

"I can only play it by ear," said Diello, not disagreeing. "At any rate, I know that he works out of Ironforge. He wants to maneuver me there for some purpose, presumably a purpose other than retrieving the Wildhammer family jewels."

"And you intend to let yourself be maneuvered?"

Diello leant against the dresser. "Skai, I've encountered Greymantle's type before. They lie eagerly and easily, but incompetently. Accordingly, he will be quick to grow suspicious, but in those suspicions he will have no conviction. I don't think that staying one step ahead of him would tax even our Paladin friend."

"What do you expect to get out of this?"

"My associates… imply very strongly that he is an agent of a power outside of the Alliance. Perhaps the Horde."

_Horde?_ The glow of Hogger's demise had faded with the posting of the letter, and Skai's ears pricked up at the word. "Do you think that you could persuade him to let me come along too?"

Even to the Skai who had, just minutes ago, been scheming to camp on the outskirts of Tarren Mill, this idea seemed like it had an immense potential for going horrifically awry. But she also knew that, as she rode the interminable leagues to Alterac, she would always wonder if she would not have found herself fighting Orc after Orc had she followed this warlock. Besides, Ironforge was halfway to Alterac. Decision made.

"Are you kidding?" said Diello in response to her question. "This man is greedy. He's greedy for something that I can provide, probably spellcasting power. _Nothing_ makes one more malleable than greed or loneliness. I think I could persuade him to buy you a whole new wardrobe if he thought that my going along with him depended on it." He gave her suit of leather hunting gear a quick look up and down. "Come to think of it, I probably should."



Diello and Skai followed Greymantle back down the bridge through the Valley of Heroes. The sun was masked by cloud, and the freneticism of the morning had abated somewhat. Skai glanced up at the statue of Alleria Windrunner, champion of the Quel'dorei, and her cousin in some respects. Alleria had been a ranger, doing work not unlike Skai's own. She had disappeared into Outland after the Dark Portal had collapsed, but now, as Skai heard more and more reports of expeditions returning from the far side of the Portal, she held out hope that the legendary huntress might be alive somewhere.

Skai and Alleria would be only the most distant of cousins, it was true. It was also true that Alleria's own sister, Sylvanas, had become the banshee queen of the Forsaken, and that most of Alleria's mortal kin had now joined the Horde, where demon magics were openly tolerated. But even so, it was hard to think that, if Alleria did survive, she would follow in the footsteps of the Forsaken or the Sin'dorei. Alleria had hunted with her longbow and her nature-given senses to guide her, and, Skai reflected, even if Alleria did keep company with arcanists like the mage Khadgar, perhaps she was not to be judged so harshly.

They made their way into Stormwind's trade district. To Skai's left, the purple roofs of the Mage Quarter were just apparent. To the right, the maroon roofs of Old Town. Straight ahead, the golden roofs of Cathedral Square, home of both the Argent Dawn and the Silver Hand. They turned right and doubled back toward the city wall, climbing a short flight of stairs to the aviary. The Stormwind aviary was administrated by a goggled Human named Dungar Longdrink.

Greymantle halted and turned to face them. "I'll go first. You'll both follow, right?"

"Of course," said Diello.

"All right," said Greymantle. He handed over a few silver to Longdrink.

"Sure you want to go all the way?" asked the flight master. "There's a nasty storm brewing."

"Yeah, yeah," said Greymantle, throwing a glance back at them. "Yeah, sure. Just… yeah." He closed Longdrink's hand over the silver. "Please."

"Your funeral," said the flight master. Greymantle mounted a Gryphon and took off over the water's surface.

Diello moved to approach the flight master, but Skai held him back.

"Are you certain about this?" she asked.

Now it was Diello who was taken aback. "Are you joking? How oversure of myself do I look? Am I a damned Paladin?"

Skai shook her head. "I don't know. Will we really be sharp enough to head off his ambush in Ironforge?" Skai thought of herself dead, Snickers left alone, with only the conscientious, though somewhat less personable Meridia to care for him. "Your imp… You saw him torn limb from limb. Doesn't that affect you?"

"Oh." Diello laughed. "The first time Kal'nos got dismembered, it definitely did. Definitely."

_Oh,_ thought Skai.

Diello forked over a piece of silver, and he and Skai mounted the last two Gryphons in the roost.

"Good luck," said Longdrink with unconcealed apprehension.

Diello clicked his tongue and his Gryphon cantered over toward the edge of the balcony and swooped out over the Valley of Heroes. Skai's followed.

Soon she was sailing through the clear sky over the glittering white wall of Stormwind. Alleria and the rest diminished to the size of figurines, and then Elwynn itself became nothing more than an expansive green banner. She peered down over the Gryphon's feathered neck, watching specks of blue, red, and brown navigate their way across Elwynn's roads. There was a flash of far-off fire as a Defias burned under a mage's spell.

Skai squinted into the free blue distance. Diello was close ahead, his golden cloak whipping in the wind, and beyond him the wheeling shape of Greymantle's Gryphon was barely discernable. Skai could imagine Greymantle glancing back over his shoulder every few minutes, wondering if his naïve companions had indeed elected to follow.

They passed over a row of high mountains, the Gryphon's wings practically skirting their peaks, and a rancid, hot breath of ash and sulfur struck her in the face. Skai had studied enough atlases to know what was coming: the Burning Steppes.

But the sight that greeted her as she soared over the dividing ridge was utterly unlike the illustrated version of the Steppes, just an oblong grey smudge veined with orange and specked with black encampments. The emptiness which opened up beneath her was almost impossible to grasp. The sluggish floes of lava which would incinerate as surely as any one of Diello's curses stretched out long and eternal. Black dragon whelps crawled along the floes, and soon, out of the ashen smog, rose a pinnacle so fearfully large that it stretched even above the altitude of Skai's Gryphon. This was Blackrock Mountain, where the Azerothian Grand Marshal Anduin Lothar had fallen in battle. Now it was controlled by the Orcs, whom she could see moving in battalions, now pausing to look up, point, and grunt at them as they passed overhead.

This landscape, barren beyond all description, made Skai feel immediately despondent. As her Gryphon circled Blackrock's peak, she wished nauseously that Dun Morogh were just on the other side. But she knew better.

Next was an even blacker smudge on the map-parchment, the Searing Gorge. They sailed over its magma spattered wastes, the deep gash in the earth where Dark Iron Dwarves mined. She was offered a brief moment of relief by the sight of Thorium Point, small and bright among the charred crags. Even hamfisted Bronzebeard masonry looked as heavenly as the sinuous architecture of Darnassus, here, and Skai found that she was half-muttering a prayer to the goddess under her breath. She looked up at the smog-obscured form of Diello and wondered if his interactions with the Twisting Nether had gone so far as to jade him to this.

Minutes passed and Skai's heart rose as she saw streaks of pale snow begin to weave their way among the Gorge's bitter peaks. Dun Morogh would be cool, at least, and its animals possessing of no more savagery than nature had granted them.

But as they swooped over the last ridge dividing the Searing Gorge from the expansive mountain-hollow of Dun Morogh, Skai could see that something was wrong. Even more than the flying ash of the Gorge, the sky was hazed by pale icy clouds. Skai put her head down as she was pelted by chunks of sleet. The Gryphon banked hard, trying to fly with the wind, and Skai wondered what would happen if they landed short of Ironforge. She knew the names on the map: Kharanos, Anvilmar, Amberstill, but could she really find her way to any of them?

Full of apprehension, Skai raised her head just enough to see over the Gryphon's neck. Diello was discernable ahead of her, a waving gold flag veering left and right in the storm. There was a burst of fire-- Diello trying to warm himself against the encroaching cold.

No. That's not what it was.

A shriek, higher and chillier than the wind's, grew to her left, and for a split second the form of a tremendous bat ridden by a cloaked and masked Forsaken was clear to her. There was a _whump_ as Diello's fireball impacted the bat, and it wheeled around them, screeching.

A second bat came out of the darkness, and then Greymantle's Gryphon.

There was a rending avian cry as one of the bats latched on to Greymantle's mount, slashing with its talons.

"Not me, you rotting fools! Not me!"

Skai's Gryphon pulled to the side, completely out of her control, attempting to maneuver underneath one of the bat's vulnerable stomachs.

"Corruption!" A greenish-black bolt struck one of the undead riders square in the chest, but the spell smoked and dissipated, unable to find any purchase in the Forsaken's already leprous body.

Skai was desperate. As her Gryphon flew up, up, almost vertically in the howling gale, up to face its adversary, she drew her gun from her back, clutched at her ammo pouch, and poured a measure of shot in. The wind snatched the pouch from her hand and whisked it away into the white void.

The bat was bearing down on her. As its claws wrapped around the Gryphon's body, she fired. The bat's eye opened up into a black hole, and it receded abruptly into the snow with a wail. But her mount was sagging from its path, listing to one side, the feathers beneath her hands growing hot with blood and then frosting over.

The Gryphon plummeted, struggling, for several interminable seconds, and plowed into a snow bank. Skai was thrown and tumbled down a snow-pillowed hill. There was the thud of the second rider falling nearby. The swoop of the bats' descent was the last sound in Skai's ears before she blacked out.


	5. Heartblood

"Wirsh andovis novas goth atol Veld Vexistrani agolandovis?"

Skai rolled over, her eyes still pasted shut by fatigue.

"Yes, yes, I'm certain it will work." It was Greymantle's voice. "If the information you've given me is correct."

"Aziris. Aziris vastrungen."

"Yes. Yes, but you only want it from the Human."

"Ude aziris?"

Skai couldn't move her hands or her legs. Finally she managed to force her eyes open. She blinked several times, her vision unblurring further and further. She was in a cave. All she could see was an icy, dirty stone floor, across which the shadows of two figures danced.

"He is, yes."

"Ras Kaldorei? Ude aziris?"

"No, no, she isn't. She just, uh, she just wanted to come along."

"Gol ras Kaldorei, an odes ude?"

"Sure. Kill her, throw her out into the snow. It doesn't matter. We just need the Human."

Skai could make out which form was Graymantle's. The one facing him was hunched, its fingers casting long, sharp shadows. She didn't even have to guess. From the dry, scraping voice alone, she knew the second figure to be Forsaken.

For all Greymantle's transparency, they had fallen into his trap. He had never intended for them to make it to Ironforge.

A third figure passed in front of the light source. Its voice was also a Forsaken rasp.

"An odes ras Kaldorei, vohl an odes ras Lithtos gol an dana ude vastrungen."

"That's right. Uh, how long do we have before he gets back?"

"Veld Vexistra? Ash vil, novas ador."

_Veld Vexistra._ Skai rolled over again, and saw Diello, bound hand and foot and, like her, wide-eyed and wondering just what he was going to do. Skai was able to twist her hand around just enough to find that they hadn't taken the small leather pouch tied to her sash. She thanked Elune that they hadn't gagged her mouth. Diello's mouth had been tied, but then, he was a spellcaster.

There was a sudden scuffling. "Ras Kaldorei! Ras Lithtos!"

A pause.

"Yes. Yes, they're awake. Well, no putting it off. Kill her."

Skai thrashed onto her back. The ceiling of the cave was high and covered in smooth, glassy ice. There was a greenish flame of magic dancing in thin air toward the center of the cave. She could see two undead, one gray and with a mat of mud-colored hair, and one more green-tinged and with a long strawlike braid.

In the far corner, there was something that looked like a body.

The first undead drew a long, hooked dagger and started toward her.

There was no time. "TAL! ASTO'RE!"

A _crack_ split the air as the bag at her side released the sudden mass of the Barrens hyena. Snickers stood for a second, uncertain, probably called unexpectedly away from a fresh piece of boar meat.

_Come on,_ thought Skai. _Figure it out quickly. Please._

Greymantle and the undead stood dumbfounded. Then the second undead unsheathed a long black club, and both Forsaken began to advance on Snickers.

"Mmmmmmmm!" Diello sprung to his feet, somehow, teetering and wild-eyed. He could do nothing, really, but the moment's diversion was just enough. Snickers was on the club-wielding undead, forcing him to the ground and inducing a wound that Skai couldn't see but that she could hear: a dry, ripping crunch.

Diello toppled over with a painful grunt, and Snickers left the Forsaken corpse, leaping between the remaining undead and Diello.

The hyena and the dark-haired undead squared off against one another. A long moment passed.

The undead took half a step back.

"Come on! Come on!" said Greymantle, and the Forsaken turned his head and hissed at him. Greymantle shook his head in disbelief and stumbled away, escaping into the snow.

"Untie us," said Skai.

The undead spat on the ground.

"Untie us, and you can live."

The undead said nothing.

"True, you can probably take my hyena. But can you do it unscathed? And how far is it to the nearest healer?" Skai wracked the scholarly part of her brain. "Kargath, isn't it? Fifty leagues away?"

The undead dropped his dagger. He knelt, and Skai felt his cold, tough-skinned fingers prying at her knots. Soon she was up. She picked up her axe and sliced Diello's bonds. Diello got to his feet and ripped the rag out of his mouth.

"What did you want us for?"

The Forsaken hesitated, the yellow beams of his eyes dancing over the warlock, the huntress, and her pet. He passed his hand over his eyes, and Skai saw that he was wearing a curious ring, with what looked like a hatching serpent engraved upon it. "Ne… Ne regen Lithtos," he said.

Diello shook his head. "No good. I know you can speak Common. Go on."

The undead bent its head and spoke bitterly, as if each syllable were the vilest curse. "It… is hateful to us."

"I'll bet," said Diello. "What can we call you?"

"My name… Gracchus Van Korrigan."

"Gracchus. Now, Gracchus, what did you want with us?"

"Vastrungen. Vastrungen."

"What?"

"Heart… blood."

"Heartblood? Really?" Diello seemed to have some idea of what the Forsaken was on about. "What did you need it for?"

The undead's eyes roved more frantically. "C… Can't. Can't."

"You _will_," said Skai.

Diello paused. "Why not?"

"Vexistra."

"Who's Vexistra?"

The undead shook his head emphatically.

"You keep silent, you die," said Skai.

The dripping of thaws and the small squeal of freezings mingled under the silence.

"You must tell us," said Diello. "If you don't… she'll do it."

"Vexistra." The undead shook his head again. "Better die than that. Vexistra… will go beyond."

Diello took a step toward him. _"Why?"_ he asked. "Why did you need my heartblood?"

The undead shook his head a final time and broke for the door. Snickers leapt after him, but before he could catch his heel, Skai's thrown axe had buried itself in the Forsaken's skull.

There was a moment of silence.

"Well," said Diello. "That was close."

Skai stormed over to the fallen undead and retrieved her axe. "It wouldn't have been if not for your damnable bravado, and for my own stupidity in following you."

Diello scoffed. "Your coming with me is no care of mine. As for my own decision to come, it's hardly any of yours."

Skai glared at him. "Just make yourself useful for a moment and conjure us up a way to get out of here." The mouth of the cave was a vertical crack, and beyond it were winds that, to Skai, looked potentially deadly.

Diello snorted and swept over to the body of the first undead. He rifled through the corpse's pockets, finding nothing more useful than a handful of throwing knives, a spongy old mushroom, and a piece of folded parchment.

Skai's eyes fell on the far side of the room, on the body she'd noticed there earlier. It was sprawled by an icy stalagmite, dark and sodden with melted snow. Skai approached very warily.

The body was a Gnome's, a female, sprawled on its stomach, skin pale. The cold had staved off decomposition somewhat, but Skai could tell from the reek of blood that there must be quite an extensive wound on the gnome's hidden frontside. Skai covered her mouth in repulsion from the spectacle, backed away.

She paused, forcing the sharper part of her nature to fight through the shock. They had to maneuver their way out of this.

"What's heartblood?" she asked.

"What?" asked Diello irascibly. He turned to face her. "Heartblood is blood pumped from the body in the last instants of life. It's sometimes used in spellcasting."

"Charming," remarked Skai. She should have known better than to get mixed up in all this arcane, demon-summoning nonsense. "So they were trying to cast a spell."

"Most likely," said Diello. "I expect that's why we're in such a secluded location, as well."

Skai glanced past a wall of stalagmites, toward the back of the cave. "That's well and good, but--" She faltered. "Diello."

"Hm?"

"Diello, come look at this."

Diello strode over to join Skai. When he saw what she had seen, he too paused.

There was a second, smaller chamber branching off of the main cavity of the cave. The chamber itself was unremarkable, a slick, watery cupola of ice and stone, but on the floor was something utterly unexpected.

It was an inscribed circle, done in some kind of deep-red paint, about eight feet in diameter. It was like Diello's summoning circle, but composed of three concentric circles and two lines of text instead of two and one. Although Elven runes were the only ones with which Skai was particularly familiar, she could tell that the language of these runes was different from the one that Diello had used.

In the center of the circle was a bundle. It was swathed in orange cloth, and was about five feet long. One end was several inches wide, and the other was just a folded point in the cloth. The cloth had been wrapped around whatever it contained in an almost haphazard manner.

"Do you know what this is?" asked Skai.

Diello nodded tentatively. "I think so." He picked up an ice-encrusted rock and pitched it at the circle. The rock turned aside, as if blown by a sudden, soundless gust of wind.

"It's a circle of binding. Come on." He and Skai approached the circle.

Skai stretched her hand out. At the point at which her fingertips would have crossed the outer edge of the circle, they encountered resistance; not rigid, almost like a strong wind, but altogether impossible for her to overcome.

"Orcish and Eredic," said Diello, inspecting the runes and then nodding. "No question. Scourge magic."

"What's inside of it?" asked Skai.

"No idea," said Diello. The wrapping was so casually laid upon the object. If not for the circle, Skai could have tossed it away effortlessly.

"I gather that this is meant to keep people from removing the object."

Diello nodded. "It's kind of a magical lock. The spell will fade eventually, but we don't have that much time to stay here. Besides, whoever cast it should be back before then."

"Vexistra?"

"That would be my guess." Then Diello paused, crouched on his hands and knees, and eyed the circle intently. "Heartblood! So that's what they were after, the cheeky little bastards…"

"Care to enlighten me?" asked Skai. She looked down at Snickers, who returned her glance sympathetically. She was beginning to pine for her days in Kalimdor when she could have gotten through an entire week without being sucked into a web of magical intrigue.

Diello stood up, energized. "Vexistra, Veld Vexistra, or someone, inscribed a circle of binding around this package to keep others away from it while he was gone. Somehow, these stooges came across it and realized what he'd inscribed it with. They didn't want heartblood to cast a spell. They wanted heartblood to _reverse_ it."

Diello gestured down toward the dark red strokes of the circle. "There are three ways to neutralize a circle of binding. First, one can simply wait for the ley-energies to dissipate. Second, one can use a counterspell fueled by a powerful reagent to counteract the original spell. Third, one can bridge the circle. Turn it from a circle, a cage, into an archway, a door. Just draw a line connecting the inside of the circle to the outside."

"But that's impossible," said Skai. "We can't draw inside of the circle. We can't pass anything inside of it."

"Not if we use the substance with which the circle was originally inscribed. Heartblood."

Skai took a step back from the circle, remembering the cadaver near the mouth of the cave.

"We should leave," said Skai.

Diello was lost in thought. "Perhaps…"

"Perhaps? We _absolutely_ should leave."

"Shhh, sh-sh-sh-sh," said Diello, holding up a hand, causing Skai to almost explode with irritation.

"What we need to do is come by some heartblood of our own…" He lifted the hem of his robe and darted back into the mouth-chamber of the cave. Kneeling, the warlock began to probe his fingers into the gashed skull of the dark-haired undead.

"Oh," said Skai, "that's lovely."

"Watch…" said Diello, bringing up two goo-coated fingers, "and learn, my Kaldorei friend…" He stood and walked back into the inner chamber.

"Clever or not, it's still repulsive," said Skai.

Diello knelt, his fingers dripping with the Forsaken heartblood, and thrust them into the circle.

Almost. His fingers rebounded. The blood dripped from them, pooling around the outside of the circle.

Diello smacked himself in the forehead with his unbloodied hand.

"What's the problem?" asked Skai.

Diello looked up at her. "I don't know."

"We need to get going," said Skai. She glanced back over at Snickers, his fur matted, beginning to shiver. "Tal, asto're," she mumbled, and the hyena blinked out of existence. The statuette clinked to the ground in his place. Skai knelt and retrieved it.

"You're right, you're right," said Diello. He glared down at the circle, and at the mysterious, orange-swaddled bundle within it. "Damn it, damn it, damn it."

"Never mind that," said Skai. Though she hadn't found this warlock to be without redeeming characteristics, every single decision he'd led her through had just brought them more difficulties. This package was probably no different: some corruptive artifact that would bring untold-of trouble down upon them.

Skai gathered up her supplies, checking that nothing was missing. The cornbread and melon juice were gone, presumably consumed by their captors as they dozed.

Skai stood in the cave's mouth as Diello gathered his things. She could only barely make out the shape of an evergreen a fathom away. The snow and its ceaseless singing filled the air.

Diello, prepared, stood before her. He looked at her, his golden hair plastered against his face by the wind. "You've been in survival situations before, I'm certain. What do you think our chances are, candidly?"

Skai shook her head. "We could be a half a league or a full dozen from the nearest town. It'll be hard to avoid obstacles. As for other concerns… at least we know that there aren't any Horde outposts in Dun Morogh. But there could be more undead about. And we know that Greymantle's out there somewhere, too."

"Well," said Diello, "if I'm going to die, better with you than with some pious fool."

Skai accepted the compliment reluctantly.



An hour had passed and they were making better distance than Skai had expected. The snow was deep, and there was no way through it but to slog, lifting one's foot up to one's knee with every step. The wind was biting, and Skai had ceased even trying to rub feeling back into her nose or eartips. But they were making good distance. No ankles twisted in crevices. No falls down hills. No trogg or Troll attacks. Good.

Diello moved stiffly, his arms wrapped around his chest.

"Diello!" shouted Skai over the gale. "Are you all right?"

"Bloody peachy!" shouted Diello back. "Thanks for asking!"

"Good!" replied Skai.

They trekked in silence for several minutes. They were making good distanc. Skai felt tired, but not yet fatigued. Freezing, but not yet hypothermic.

_All great Elves have been travelers._

The memory came back to her with surprising lucidity. It was almost a vision.

Icharu. "The same goes for the other races of the Alliance, despite our much-touted differences. Gnomes venture from their homes for fuels, essences, bits of machinery, or ideas. Dwarves travel for treasure. Draenei, because it is their tradition. Humans, because their imaginations rage like wildfire over the possibilities of what is past the next hill, and the only way to quench that fire is by traveling there to see for oneself."

They were inside one of the cool chambers of the Cenarion Enclave. Dry leaves scraped across the floor in the breeze. The air smelled faintly of bark and lavender.

"And why do Elves travel?"

Icharu smiled at her quick-wittedness. "Elves are not natural travelers. Elves move only to defend themselves from removed assailants. Aszhara. Archimonde. Illidan. Now the Orcs, the foul Undead, and our Highborne cousins who mass against us."

"These are heavy times," said Skai. Even then, as much as she did now in the snow, she had felt the weight of the war, the dead, and the living bound to service, hanging over her.

"True enough. But consider the possibility that these are also elevating times. Enriching times. Not because of the war, but because Elves are traveling again. Discovering again. And consider that we, unlike our lost cousins, are weathering this fight not by compromising ourselves but by honing ourselves, becoming more studied, more adept, and more truthseeing than ever before."

Skai stood, barely resisting the urge to pace. Even in the tranquility of the Cenarion Enclave, one was not utterly removed from the presence of battle.

"But _is_ that what these times are doing to us? Tyrande and Staghelm's bickering escalates nightly. We all see it. Our leaders are divided. The true Archdruid Malfurion is lost in the Emerald Dream. Are these times really polishing us, or are they grinding us apart?"

"Thero'shan, again your words are not without truth, and it is certain that the rift between the Archdruid and the High Priestess troubles all those who are wise. But the nation of the Night Elves is not Tyrande, or Staghelm, or Malfurion. The nation of the Night Elves, the _Kal'Thalas_, if you will, is us. The people. Not our leaders. Not our figureheads. Not our banner. Tyrande and Staghelm quarrel. Their high-ranking druids and priests quarrel. _We_ unite.

"Outside of Teldrassil, everywhere is a battle front. As an Elf of Astranaar, you should appreciate that better than most. Travel to the front lines of Warsong Gulch, travel to Arathi Basin or Alterac Valley. Tell me if, in those places, you find discord between the priests and the druids. And tell me if, rather, you find Elves, arm in arm, pulling each other up, helping each other, aiding even those of other disciplines to better themselves."

"Travel," breathed Skai. She glanced out through the fluted columns. Snickers was prowling through the outskirts of the Enclave, through the falling leaves. "When will my travels come?"

"All too soon, I fear," said Icharu. "More and more apprentices are being called away before the completion of their studies. My greatest fear is that one day it shall be only myself, Icharu Oakwalker, the Archdruid, the High Priestess, and their lieutenants. A city of nothing but rulers; stately, perhaps, but as unable to constitute a complete society as a crowd of marble statues. And the song of the Kaldorei will be forever diminished, for what is truly the heart and flesh of our nation will have been sent away, dispersed and mingled, beyond all recall."

"Khurg!"

Skai snapped her head to the side and peered through the snow. Diello had collapsed.



Skai slung Diello over her back and continued on, bent by his weight, her fingers pale and numb, but still able to hold him fast. She could see fog trickling out from between his lips. His skin had always been of a pale hue, but Skai was filled with worry nevertheless.

"Elune aid me!" she grunted, heaving Diello to her other side. She had been crossing ridges, crossing ridges forever. All she had come across was tree after tree after tree.

"Mhhhhhrm," Diello mumbled.

"Diello!" shouted Skai, not daring to break stride even for a second. "Diello, hang on! I'm going to get you to a healer!"

"Mmrm," groaned Diello. "Priest."

"I'll get you to a priest!" said Skai. She was fit, but the full weight of the Human's body was burning at her muscles even as they threatened to freeze.

"Priest," murmured Diello. "Not a Paladin."

"Right!" said Skai. In any other circumstance she would have shaken her head at his frivolity, but now she just carried on.

The sun was descending. For the snow, Skai couldn't have said which side of the sky it had been on, but the world around her was definitely dimming. The outskirts of visibility were now, rather than blank, murky.

_No,_ thought Skai. _Elune be with me. Elune be with me. If we get caught out here after dark, we're dead._

Diello came awake again with a start. "Mrm," he groaned.

"Hang on!" said Skai. "You're all right!" She glanced toward him. His eyes were barely slit open, and his golden beard was caked with frost.

"Y'have to stop," said Diello.

"No!" said Skai.

"I'm dead," said Diello. "Stop."

"You're dead when I tell you you're dead, not before!" shouted Skai, unsure if the comment conveyed flinty toughness or gung-ho idiocy.

"Need to tell someone," said Diello. "Just one. Before I die."

"You're not dying!" Skai swore violently in Darnassian.

"Stop," said Diello. "Have to tell you."

"Shut up!" yelled Skai, almost falling as the terrain began to slope downhill. "Shut up!"

"Stratholme," said Diello, and passed out.

Skai felt as if she were trapped inside a tremendous pearl. There was nothing, nothing, just a few feet of snow in each direction. No mountains, no sky, no horizon. No hope. Nothing.

Skai managed to stumble down to the bottom of the incline, and found herself facing another climb. Forcing all her strength into her legs, she lifted one foot, swung it forward, planted it down, over, over, over. Slowly, slowly, she reached the top of the rise.

"Pulling each other up, aiding even those of other disciplines."

Skai stopped and desperately searched the snowy wastes around her.

"Who speaks?" She spun abruptly, and again, almost falling. "Show yourself!"

No one.

Skai made it to the bottom of the hill without falling. She kept walking, kept walking, one foot after the other, one foot after the other. The ground began to curve up again. Another hill. Skai pumped her legs, feeling burning acid pouring through her veins, her teeth clenched tight. As she felt the ground beginning to level off, pain shot through her right ankle. She stumbled, kept her balance, stood. The pain faded. Skai lifted her left foot, swung it through the air, stomped it down. She looked unsurely down at her right foot. It felt fine enough.

As Skai lifted her right foot, agony constricted it, and it was all she could do not to collapse. She shouldered Diello, leaning as hard to the left as she could, trying to stave off the fire of her injured ankle.

There was a break in the snowfall, and Skai could see hill after hill after hill to climb extending before her, with no end in sight. Up in the sky the moon was luminous and cool blue. In a moment, clouds of snow had covered it all back up again. The pain had subsided again, but tears had welled out of her eyes, and frozen on her blue cheeks. Skai was furious. She looked up into the white abyss, to where the moon had been, and screamed.

"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Her chest heaved as she stared vengefully up into the sky. "Elune! Damn you! HELP ME!"

Skai threw herself, on her feet, down the slope of the hill. Her right ankle erupted into flame, but she kept up, kept up, racing up the next hill, sliding down, racing up the next one. There was a catch in her foot. It wouldn't bend properly. Skai shifted her weight, limping now, limping down the slope. She couldn't catch her breath properly. Soon she would collapse and be buried in the snow.

Skai limped her way up the next slope. She made it to the top. She stumbled, stopped, started down the slope at the wrong angle, running diagonally now. She paid no heed. She made her way up the next slope.

Skai fell to her knees, teeth bared, feeling an inexplicable, spiteful joy at the knowledge that she would die, here, in this far-off land, no help given to her by the goddess or any of the other spirits. None.

Skai lowered herself to her hands and knees, Diello draped across her back, and began to crawl, head down. She'd keep going. Nothing was going to get the better of her. She'd keep crawling until her legs stopped working. If a pack of troggs came upon her, she'd fight them off with her last frozen, gasping breath.

Skai, breathing fitfully, crawled on. She closed her eyes, crawled, crawled.

Skai hit her head on something. It smarted terribly, for a moment the pain breathing some vitality back into her. She looked up.

It was a stone brazier. The fire was out, but there was no mistaking what it was. The light gray masonry blended into the snow, but it was there.

Skai looked back up to where the moon had been and shook her head in astonishment.

Not wasting a second, she forced herself to her feet and, right ankle wrapped in pain, launched forward, forward, then, _yes, _a building! The architecture was unmistakably Dwarvish. In fact, as there were tremendous liquor kegs set into the walls, it might have been the most unmistakably Dwarvish building she had ever seen.

Skai tripped up the front steps and threw herself through the swinging oaken doors. With her, into the warm, clean dryness that smelt of fire, spirits, and linen, she brought a blast of dirty ice and wind.

"Muradin's beard! What's the meanin' of this?"

Skai slung Diello's insensate body into a nearby chair and fell herself into one before addressing the Dwarf.

"Get me a priest. A physician. A Paladin. Anyone. My friend needs help."

Skai pulled out her coin satchel and emptied her share of Hogger's bounty onto the broad tiles of the floor.

"Get me a bed. Get me hot food. Get me a fire. Get me hot water. Get me fresh clothes. We need… We need everything." Skai sank down in the chair, face in her hands.


	6. Stratholme

The Thunderbrew Distillery was a medium-sized building, set into the rock of a circular hill in the town of Kharanos. Although a small community, Kharanos was within easy walking distance of Ironforge, even in stormy weather.

Belm, a stocky, brown-bearded Dwarf, the administrator of lodgings at the Thunderbrew Distillery, showed Skai to a bed. Diello was lain on the bed alongside hers, and a physician and a Paladin were called to attend to him.

Skai rolled over, sick at heart, the flickering of the roaring fire barely showing through her eyelids. She heard the rough-tongued Dwarvish whispers of Diello's healers, hardly daring to hope that they might be communicating good news about his condition.

She drifted in and out of a fitful, aching sleep for some time. When she at last awoke properly, there was a battered but intricately-designed metal tray lying by her bed. She picked up a side of meet from the tray and sniffed it. She guessed that it might be lamb, and gnawed at it until only the bone was left. There was also a portion of green, soft vegetable, and a rather tough hunk of bread, which she ate too. Along with the meal was a stein of lager, which she left sitting.

Skai unbuckled her leather hunting boots and lay them aside. They were wet, almost sodden, and covered in mud and grime. Her whole body felt damp. She was still tired, but when she lay back down on the sheets, she could not sleep.

She looked over at the other bed. Diello lay, pale, stripped to his leggings and a fresh white linen shirt. His old shirt, which was stained and marked with red blood, greenish undead filth, and grit and soil, lay folded over the back of a timber bench pushed against the wall.

Skai rose and walked gingerly over to the bench, her ankle still smarting slightly. There also lay Diello's robe, red, white, and gold, beautifully maintained until now. Like Diello's lustrous hair and sure command of Nether magic, these robes were his pride. There were his boots, black and utilitarian, rarely visible under the sweep of the hem, and his gold-threaded cloak. There were also his sword, which she had never seen him use, his traveling pack, and his wand, which lay bent but still, perhaps, functional.

Skai also noticed something which she had never seen Diello wear: a pendant, hung on a plain leather cord, which lay next to a folded-up piece of parchment. She picked the pendant up. It was a stone token, with the Lordaeronian seal almost worn off from the front. She flipped it over. The writing on the back, in Common, was so worn that it was almost entirely illegible.

"Ss…" sounded Skai. "Mi..."

"Stratholme," said Diello.

Skai dropped the pendant and spun around. "Oh, I apologize--"

Diello shook his head and swallowed. He was still shockingly pallid, but when his eyes opened, they were the same clear green they had been the day she had met him.

"Militia," he finished. "Stratholme Militia."

"I shouldn't pry," said Skai.

Diello shook his head again. "Sit. I have to tell you." He coughed weakly.

Skai sat at the side of her bed, still mortified at having been caught rifling through someone else's possessions. "You don't have to tell me anything," she said quickly. "You're recovering."

"You had a Paladin ministering to me," said Diello.

"It was either that or let you die," said Skai, the edge returning to her feelings.

Diello laughed. "No, no. It's not that. It's just," he coughed, "funny, is all."

"Shall I have the innkeeper get you anything?" asked Skai.

"Just listen," said Diello. "I could die… any time, really. And I suppose I want at least one person to know this. Someone who gives a damn."

Skai nodded, unsure if she really wanted to know anything about Diello's history. Her disavowal of Elune still bit at her, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to hear Diello tell of how he'd descended into demon magistry without being constantly reminded of her own failing.

"You're well-read," said Diello. "Stratholme. Do you know it?"

Stratholme. Skai thought. Yes, she was aware of it. It had been one of the greatest cities of Lordaeron, almost as populous as the Capital City itself, until it had been demolished by the Scourge. Skai had never been within a hundred leagues of it, but she knew it as the symbol of a keep, across a lake, surrounded by Scourge ziggurats. It was a ruin.

"I know it."

"I," Diello placed his palm on his chest, "was born there. Diello of Stratholme. The city was happy. We were at the peak of our prosperity. The Orcs had been quelled for good. The undead were, pfft, children's stories. We were never afraid except in our nightmares. My parents wanted me to go to Dalaran to study magic. I was young. I didn't know what I wanted. Every Wednesday, carts of grain bought from Andorhal came into the city. Grain from Andorhal, greens from Brill, beef from Hearthglen. Fruit from Stranglethorn when we could afford it.

"The summer of my fourteenth year, I spent many days out fishing the lake south of the city wall. I had a soft spot for fresh fish. I sometimes stayed out past suppertime, and left my dinner to grow cold. I didn't really mind.

"One afternoon when I had stayed out all but 'til dusk, I returned to find a dispatch of knights at the city gates. Knights and Paladins were a common sight in Stratholme. It's where the Silver Hand was founded, you know."

Diello inhaled deeply. "I remember it so vividly. Standing upon that hill. Young. Unformed in nature. The wind in my hair.

"Two groups of knights stood separate from one another, under two banners. One followed the Silver Hand, the other the crown of Lordaeron. I crept closer. I could hardly see their faces, but the wind carried their voices clearly. It was almost as if I were _meant _to hear… but that's absurd…

"The knights of the Silver Hand were led by the Paladin Uther the Lightbringer, champion of the Second War. The knights of the crown were led by the Paladin Arthas Menethil, son of the king.

"It was Wednesday, you see. That morning, the caravans had come in. Grain from Andorhal. Greens from Brill. Beef from Hearthglen. Fruit from Stranglethorn. We could afford it.

"The grain had been poisoned by the sorcerer Kel'Thuzad. Anyone who ate of it fell into a deep sleep, and awoke enslaved to Ner'zhul.

"The entire township had become infected. Arthas and Uther had been pursuing the tainted grain across the countryside, but had failed to stop us from eating it. The Dreadlord Mal'ganis had entered the city with his ghouls and would marshal an army of the villagers as soon as they awoke from their slumber, their transformation completed.

"Mal'ganis's army would sweep across Lordaeron, easily overwhelming the skeleton crew of royal footmen guarding the farming villages from Defias. And there was nothing to be done for them. Once the plagued grain had been eaten, there was no reversing the affliction.

"Arthas determined to purge the city, to slay every last Stratholmer rather than let them become soldiers for the Scourge. Uther refused to participate, refused to murder civilians. Uther and his knights departed. Arthas stayed, and finished the job.

"I couldn't bring myself to enter the town while it was going on. I climbed one of the nearby hills and watched as best I could. It began to rain. A clear, dark-skied late-Autumn rain.

"Mal'ganis and his ghouls advanced from the north wall of the city, Arthas from the south gate. My family's dwelling was hidden from view, but we lived just a few blocks from the city gates. My family did not rise again to serve Mal'ganis. They were slain in their sleep by Arthas.

"Eventually, Mal'ganis was forced back, and he departed. I couldn't imagine why the two did not duel to the death. It's history now, of course. Mal'ganis challenged Arthas to meet him in the frozen wastes of Northrend.

"Once in Northrend, Arthas confronted the Dreadlord. But it wasn't until Arthas took up a cursed runeblade that he was able to kill his foe, which he did with ease. But by then, the blood spilt on the runeblade's edge had blotted into Arthas's soul too deeply to be easily excised. The prince chose to give himself over to the runeblade's crafter, Ner'zhul. Ner'zhul had offered up Mal'ganis so that Arthas could rise, become his, become his champion.

"But I didn't know any of this as I sat there on that hill, watching Stratholme burn. Stratholme, jewel of Lordaeron. Stratholme, Stormwind of the north. It was all gone.

"Once Mal'ganis and the Lordaeronians had departed, I crept down into the ruins. I never reached my old home. Mal'ganis's ghouls were too thick on the ground. But I did take that token. It was all I could do. I took it from a Stratholme militiaman, bludgeoned dead by a Paladin's hammer."

Diello coughed again. "There are thousands, thousands who would give their lives to slay Arthas. Human, Elf… even Orc. Even Forsaken. But I swear to you this, I would have slain him even as he walked from the gates of Stratholme, still human, and still with good in his heart.

"I would have killed him then. I would have stabbed him in the back. I would have poisoned him in his sleep. I would even," and he extended his arms, "have bartered my soul with the forces of the Twisting Nether if it would have aided my fight against him."

Diello fell silent. Skai sat for a long while before responding.

"Have you considered the purging of Stratholme from any other angle? For example, that by destroying the villagers, Arthas prevented them from being used as an instrument to destroy another city full of families like your own?"

Diello nodded. "You're correct, of course. Arthas was absolutely justified. If my family hadn't been exterminated by him, they would have become cannibals, become mindless, dead-eyed murderers. Uther was an utter naïf not to have seen this."

"Then why do you feel such vengefulness toward Arthas?"

"Because he killed my family. There is no justification for it. But my will is my own, to do with what I choose. I will follow an unjust cause, because it is what is in my heart. I will gamble with pieces of my spirit, will haggle with demons, because my spirit is also mine to do with what I choose. One day I will end up dead or damned, and good riddance to this endless waiting. Or perhaps… Perhaps…" His eyes lit with cold flame. "Perhaps one day Arthas Menethil will know the taste of my blade."

Skai held out her hand. Diello's eyes fixed on it.

"Take my hand," said Skai.

Diello did. His skin was hot in her grasp, his body verging on deadly fever.

"You will recover," said Skai. "As much weight as I hold with Elune, and as much influence as she has in these lands, I will enlist to speed your healing. You will survive." She wished she felt as strong as she sounded.

Diello nodded.

"We will both mend," said Skai. "We will gather up our things. We will thank our hosts. And then we will go to Ironforge."

"Ironforge," said Diello with a laugh. The ride had taken a little longer than expected, but it seemed that they would be reaching their destination after all.

"There's something in that cave. Something that the Forsaken want. Something that a Human could be tempted by."

"Humans can be tempted by anything," said Diello.

Skai shrugged in acquiescence. "I think we have to find out everything we can about what we know. Circles of binding. Heartblood curses. 'Veld Vexistra.'"

Diello sat up a little, piqued, and dropped her hand. "Why? Don't you regret getting mixed up in something so… questionable?"

Skai stood. She wasn't sure that he'd buy in to her reasoning. "Whatever is under that cloth has been enough for three sentient beings to be killed over. It's not a sack of gold. It's something powerful. Everything points to that. And if we don't retrieve it first, the Forsaken or the Scourge will."

Diello paused. "It's small. No bigger than a bastard sword. It must contain either enchantment or information to attract such attention."

"Given the amount of slogging we've seen take place over it so far, I'd bet on enchantment," said Skai. "I mean, Greymantle didn't seem much one for nuances of strategy, did he?"

Diello smirked. "Put mildly."

"If the Forsaken get a hold of whatever is in that circle, it could mean the deaths of Alliance troops. It could mean a town taken and its people put to bondage or undeath."

"I'd worry more about the Scourge, personally," said Diello.

"Regardless," said Skai, "we must make every effort to penetrate the heartblood circle before the Forsaken do, or before Veld Vexistra, or whoever originally wove the spell, returns."

"Ironforge," said Diello again. "I've never cast or broken a heartblood spell. I know little of the distinctions between different kinds of heartblood. I know little of what characteristics of the donor can affect the heartblood's constitution. There are people in Ironforge who will talk to me. I'll find out what I can, and about this 'Vexistra.'"

"Rest first," said Skai. "We need all our strength. When the Forsaken return, they will do so in numbers. Moving an army into Dun Morogh would be next to impossible, but I think we should be prepared to run into more than two grayskins when we go back to the cavern."

"We'll need another in our party," said Diello. "Two isn't enough to watch in all directions."

Skai paused. "Remember Greymantle. Now that the stakes have risen, any infiltration that comes will be sure to do so with more finesse."

Diello nodded. "We won't be able to trust anyone. Moreso than usual, even."

"If only there were other Kaldorei here," sighed Skai. But even that would not have been a perfect solution. Fandral Staghelm, extravagant though it would be to suspect him of collaboration with the Horde, was not immune to the magnetism of power. Skai could think of dozens of druids who lusted only after greater degrees of ability, thinking only as much of the responsibility that these powers brought as they were compelled to by their mentors. And what, she thought, of Illidan Stormrage? Illidan, who had fused himelf with the Dreadlord Tichondrius in a bid to augment his abilities? No, no one among the Night Elves short of her beloved Shan'do, the High Priestess, or the Archdruid Malfurion himself would suffice as an absolutely trustworthy fellow sojourner.

"Let me deal with it," said Skai. "I'll go to Ironforge and see what I can dig up. You stay here and recover."

Skai stood. Diello slid down against the headboard and closed his eyes. "I'll be up in a day or two. I've been in worse shape than this before."

"We'll have to move quickly. Whoever inscribed that circle didn't intend to leave it forever. I'll meet you here in three days."

Diello nodded. His eyes stayed closed, and he seemed uncharacteristically peaceful. Skai thought that, since telling the story of Stratholme, Diello already seemed closer to recovering.

"Elune'Adore, warlock."

She pulled on her boots, gathered up her things, and outfitted herself for travel. She made a mental note to purchase a new ammo pouch in Ironforge. She folded her long, inky blue hair up under her leather cap.

On the way out, Skai saw Innkeeper Belm and the physician speaking. Belm waved her over.

"Leaving in a hurry, are ya?" asked Belm.

"Matters demand it," said Skai. She felt winded, not yet fully revitalized, but her current state would have to suffice for the journey. "My friend will be up within the next few days."

Belm and the physician looked at one another.

"Thamner thinks…" said Belm, and trailed off.

"It's nae good," said the physician. "Nae good at all. Yer friend. 'E's vergin' on fever. 'E needs purgatives, but we've got none 'ere, an' the blizzard's got us all hemmed in."

"Purgatives," repeated Skai. She stepped toward the door. "Thank you for your concern, both of you, but I have faith that my friend will recover in due course. Asha'falah, gentlemen." And she left.



Physician Thamner Pol did find that the Human Diello regained his strength with surprising speed. The day he had arrived he was more dead than alive, frozen to the very core. He and Azar had hardly expected him to make it.

The morning the Night Elf departed, Diello had sat up and begun to take broth. The day after that, he was walking, albeit unsteadily. The second day after the Night Elf had gone he seemed absolutely hell-bent on recovery and, although Thamner thought that if the Human had imbibed just a sip of Thunderbrew lager he would have passed right back out again, Diello would not be dissuaded from leaving. On the second day after the Night Elf had departed, Diello set out for Ironforge.



After leaving the Thunderbrew Distillery, Skai headed north. The blizzard continued, its snows rendering the road to Ironforge visually indistinguishable from the rocky slope, but, as Skai focused, beneath her feet she could feel the shift between loose rocks and soil and the road, icy and hard-packed from years of being traveled over.

The wind abated as Skai approached the monolithic Ironforge gates. They were a massive construction of wind-polished iron, and lancelike icicles hung from their face.

Skai ducked inside. Even a foot into the city, the air was warmer, and although not breezy, it was stirred by an ever-moving current. The tremendous metal statue of a Bronzebeard Mountain King stood at the back of the rotunda, and Skai glanced up at it as she shook the snow from her shoulders and stamped off her boots.

She could go right or left into the city. Which entrance she took made little difference, although it was a detail that stuck in her mind.

Skai chose left. She emerged into a cavernous chamber, lit by braziers to its dark and vaulted ceiling, and warmed by the body heat of a multitude of Dwarves, Humans, and Gnomes. There was an irrepressible air of busyness to the city, but also a greater air of sociability than in Stormwind. Perhaps, Skai thought, this was contributed to by the myriad of pubs and roving drinks vendors. Skai headed straight for the nearest guard.

The significance of the dual-pronged rotunda of Ironforge was this: two years ago, a force composed of the Blacktooth Grin Clan of Orcs and the Suncrown Guild of Sin'dorei had assaulted Stromgarde Keep. Stromgarde had fallen before the assault (although it had long since been reclaimed) and the battle had pushed on toward Ironforge. There, the Horde forces had been beaten decisively, despite breaking through the gate itself. Skai had studied diagrams of the battle over and over, fascinated, and had eventually concluded that the attackers' failure to prepare for Ironforge's bifurcated entryway was at least partially to blame for their defeat. The Horde had not decided whether to go left or right upon entering Ironforge, and so they had split themselves in half. The Gates of Ironforge, like the bridge through the Valley of Heroes, had done their part in allowing the Alliance to defend herself.

Skai procured directions from the guard to the nearest pub, The Stonefire Tavern.

After muscling her way to the tavern, Skai found it to be almost precisely what she'd expected. Almost every seat at almost every table was occupied by the posteriors of an adept and sleek, or at least a very enthusiastic, adventurer or prospective adventurer. Skai ordered a goblet of Pinot Noir and sat at a corner table, observing those around her. Here, she hoped, she would find a companion for herself and Diello for their return to the cavern.

There were too many people, too many coming and going, for Skai to number them all. There were several Dwarves, many of them warriors, a number of them Paladins, not a few of them rogues, and most of them fairly drunk. A mead-enlivened Dwarf hefting a tremendous axe might have been an asset had Skai been planning an assault on an Orc outpost, but Skai couldn't imagine any of the Dwarves present accepting their situation with the mysterious circle of binding. They looked as if they'd either try to smash the hell out of it, or just desert the whole enterprise as magister's mumbo-jumbo and go out for a pint.

Skai felt a sting. Was this xenophobia talking? She'd become aware that her preconceptions were all too fallible after having gotten to know Diello and finding out that he wasn't just a particularly bloodthirsty and hubris-ridden variant of your average mage.

Skai glanced at a nearby troupe of Dwarves. One of them had managed to fit his head into an exhausted keg and was dancing back and forth across the table to the rhythmic clapping of his fellows. No, Skai decided. It wasn't xenophobia. Although she did make a note to return to Ironforge in the event that she survived her current adventure and wanted to plan an assault on an Orc outpost.

"Evening," said a voice. Skai looked up to find herself eye-to-eye with a Human mage in blue-and-silver robes. The mage was slim and beardless, his extravagantly long black hair sweeping across his back.

"Good evening," said Skai. "Please, sit."

The Human sat across from her, and sipped deeply from a glass of Moonberry juice. "Mm," he said, wiping his mouth. "Are you staying in Ironforge?"

Skai shook her head. "I'm on an errand."

"Ah," said the mage. "A _quest_, as they say here in Azeroth."

"Yes," said Skai. "You might call it that. And yourself?"

He raked his fingers through his locks. "I've just concluded an 'errand' myself. Taking care of some troggs for a farmer down in Coldridge Valley. You know, their fur's thick, but I've yet to see it help one iota in the face of a little frost magic! Shazow!" He laughed and gesticulated in mock-conjuration.

"You specialize in frost magic, then, do you?"

He nodded. "You could say that. The blue livery kind of gives me away, huh? I'm a frost mage, although I know my share of fire and arcane as well. Of course, studying with what you might call a curriculum went out the window when Dalaran turned into a big, shiny bubble. My dad was of the Kirin Tor, Light bless him. Died when Draenor exploded."

"Since coming to Azeroth, I'm starting to think that I'm the only person I know whose parents died naturally."

The mage grinned. "Azeroth, getting cut down by an Orc's scimitar rather than a warlock's soul tap is about as much as one can hope for so far as a natural end goes." He clinked his glass against Skai's cup. "Here's to that, huh?" The mage drained his glass of the opalescent juice. "At least the Orcs here are green rather than red. Say, when you're done with your chore of the moment, you should take a trip down to Coldridge Valley if you're looking for quick cash. Sounds like the troggs there are getting way more militant. More organized. And, if I can appeal to the mercenary in you, that means worried farmers, which means beefier bounties. Of course, I suppose we'll have to wait until this storm dies down."

"Oh?" said Skai, still judging him. Smart and skillful, perhaps, but was he too concerned with gold to be trusted? And, of course, he had contacted her, which made her immediately suspicious. True, in all likelihood he was perfectly innocent, but Skai didn't want to bank on it if her and Diello's lives were at stake.

"Truly," said the mage. "A young gnome named Azurine disappeared a week or so back. Terrible. A frost-fingered mage, tutored by a Dalaranian."

Skai froze. She made the connection instantly.

"Say," said the mage. "You wouldn't be looking for help, would you? On your errand, or an upcoming one, perchance? Light knows sitting in front of a flagon can only entertain a warrior."

Skai didn't answer immediately.

"Oh," said the mage. "I'm Kastrakhan, incidentally. Kastrakhan of Tuurem. And you are?"

"Meridia," said Skai, holding out her hand. "Meridia of Auberdine." They shook.

Skai allowed the conversation to putter out into nothingness before moving. She waded through the pub, toward the door. Surely there was someone else here, someone beyond reasonable suspicion?

A trio of Draenei sat at one of the tables in the back. Skai changed direction and moved for them. There were two Vindicators and a shaman. The first Vindicator, a Draenei with skin the color of faded violets and a quartet of impressive tentacles dangling from his chin, raised a glass to her.

"What ho! Another stranger to these lands. Here, please sit."

Skai did so.

"My name's Skai Mistweaver," said Skai. The Vindicator nodded his head toward her, a kind of in-seat bow. "I am Neldred of Telredor. These are my kinsmen," motioning toward the second Vindicator, "Sateranai of Telredor," and now to the shaman, "and Haxas of Shattrath. We are pleased to make your acquaintance, child of the stars."

"And I yours," said Skai. Strangely, these beings from another world made Skai feel more at home than she had since pushing off from Auberdine. She looked around at them, at their familiar, blue-glowing eyes, and decided to plunge ahead immediately.

"I apologize deeply for my forwardness, but the matter to which I refer is one of some urgency and I am confident that you will understand. I and one of my companions have become aware of a certain object stashed in one of the caves to the south of here. We believe that this object may be of great significance, and we seek assistance from the righteous in our attempts to retrieve it before the Horde can."

The Draenei looked at each other uncomfortably.

"I'm sorry," said Neldred. "As much blessing as we wish upon your enterprise, if it is indeed inspired of virtue, we cannot accompany you. We are emissaries of the Aldor, and we must return to Shattrath City within the fortnight. But even if we could join you, we would not. We do not form our loyalties on the basis of this Horde-Alliance conflict."

"My friend speaks truly," said Sateranai. "The Burning Crusade of Kil'jaeden is of much greater concern to the Aldor than the war-craft of Orcs and Humans. We would gladly fight side-by-side with Orcs, as your kind did at Mount Hyjal, if it would further the cause of _all_ life-loving folk."

Skai felt utterly deflated. "Once more, I must apologize, truly, for my terseness. I do not wish to cause offense. However, I must leave you immediately." Skai rose.

Neldred held up his immense hand. "There is no need, child of the stars. Were such circumstances unfamiliar to us, we would not be able to truly call ourselves Aldor."

"Or Draenei," added Haxas.

Skai bowed. "I can see that you and your friends are of the utmost nobility. May Elune bless you in your endeavors. Ande'thoras'ethil."

Neldred and the others inclined their heads toward her. "May you walk in the light of the Naaru, Skai Mistweaver. Best fortune to you, and farewell.

Skai left The Stonefire Tavern feeling a little less lonely, but still incorrigibly downhearted. Every adventurer who approached her amicably seemed suspect. How could she know with certainty that they were not attempting to win her good graces only to betray her in direst consequence? How could she find someone who wasn't trying to impress her, who wasn't trying to win her favor, and yet who would choose to fight alongside her?

Skai, crossing the busy Ironforge corridor, stopped dead in her tracks. The foot traffic bent around her. She reversed direction, bounding toward the first guard she could see.

"Excuse me," said Skai to the guard, "but where is your flight master?"



Xavier knelt at his devotions, five other young Paladins to his left, five to his right.

"The Light is a stern master!" said Tirion Fordring, pacing before them. "The Light demands your sternness! You must not administer the Light's will in half-measures, for there is where kings have fallen. "

Xavier's eyes followed the hem of Fordring's golden robe as it swept across the white tiles.

Once devotions had concluded, Xavier donned his armor and walked out into Cathedral Square. He clasped his hands and stretched them out over his head, drinking in the sunlight as it hit his face. From here he would go to the Gilded Rose for a light breakfast and then out into Elwynn to patrol the woods for Defias.

Someone tapped Xavier on the shoulder. The Paladin blinked away the sunlight and turned to see the tall, slender figure of an Elf before him.

"Xavier," said Skai Mistweaver. "Can Master Fordring spare you for a moment?"

"To what task?" asked Xavier. "Does another gnoll need finishing?"

Skai shook her head. "Undead. Curses. Secret caverns." She smiled. "Glory-hounding, Xavier. Glory-hounding."


	7. Veld Vexistra

Diello blew across the page of the tome. How dust had gotten in between each page was beyond him.

Behind him, the Gnome Lago Blackwrench paced, plucking at his thin green mustache.

"Spackle Thornberry told me about you, yes? You know the Stormwind chapter, yes?"

"Yes," muttered Diello irritably. He was not yet entirely over his chill, and his entire body ached. The trip up to Ironforge, and all the way back to the Forlorn Caverns, secreted away past the Mystic Ward where the mages studied, had taken a good portion of his strength. Adding to all this was the fact that the tome he was studying, in part focusing on the uses of heartblood, was coated with dust, its pages faded and stiff. It was all he could do to make out the Common script, and the Eredic runes were almost impossible to discern as writing at all.

"You know Stormwind, yes? You know the area well, don't you?"

"Is there something in particular you'd like to ask me, Blackwrench?"

Diello was still wondering if Sandahl had known more about the man named Greymantle than he'd let on, and had sent Diello to die for some past slight (and there had been quite a few). Diello knew that he'd have to deliver whatever was under that orange swaddling-cloth if he were to avoid being murdered by one of the order, in any case. Keeping it for himself was completely out of the question, unfortunately. After so much blood spilt, it would only be a matter of time before the Sandahl and the Stormwind warlocks found out enough of the details to know what he'd come by, if they didn't already.

But what _had_ he come by? And how was he going to consummate his possession of it? Diello flipped to the next page, blowing away the dust and skimming the text. He had to know why the undead's heartblood had failed to break the seal. He remembered Greymantle's saying that only he, Diello, was needed, and that Skai could be dispensed with. What property would his heartblood have had? It wasn't a racial difference; Diello already knew that. The circle of binding had been sealed with the heartblood of a Gnome.

"You know The Slaughtered Lamb, yes? Below it, the catacombs, yes? You know what is _in_ them, yes?"

Quelling his desire to pick up the Gnome and punt him straight out the window, Diello turned. "The Stormwind catacombs hold some old bones and a few summoning circles used by trainees to bring forth Voidwalkers."

Blackwrench was almost hopping with agitation. "The whelps! The whelps, yes! They spawn Black Dragonflight whelps there, I know!"

"Are you out of your mind?" snapped Diello. "You could barely fit a birthing mother into the Valley of Heroes, let alone some musty little crevice below The Slaughtered Lamb." He turned back to the book and ignored Blackwrench's whining protests. On a completely unrelated note, Diello had decided to ask Blackwrench who had tailored his silver-trimmed black robes. Diello thought that they looked quite smart.

The tome Diello was examining had many pages of information on heartblood, but little that Diello found at all edifying. It began with a comparison of the properties of humanoid versus beast blood, and went on to examine the unique properties of the blood of various humanoids. Now the book seemed to be lapsing into a too-detailed account of the discovery of heartblood magic, by the Orcs under Gul'dan and by the Humans under some fools in Alterac.

Wait--

Diello scanned back up to the top of the page.

"Tell me, Diello, what does Spackle work on

these--"

"Ssh!" Diello held up a hand and Blackwrench lapsed into moody, noisy silence.

_Heartblood magic,_ Diello read, _was pioneered in the Human kingdoms at approximately the same time by conjurors working under Baron Perenolde of Alterac's High Chancellor, Lord Andan Vexistra._

Diello walked over to Lago's bookshelf, running his finger along the moldering spines, until he came across _A Gutterspeak Primer_. The book was in remarkably poor condition, given that Gutterspeak had only come into existence some seven years prior.

Diello slammed the book down onto the table and flipped through to the Vs.

_Veld- noun, regal title, equiv. Duke, Lord, Count, etc._

Diello slammed the book shut.

_Veld Vexistra._

_Lord Vexistra. Lord Andan Vexistra._

Diello moved back to the book on dark enchantments. He skimmed forward, but found no further mention of this Lord Vexistra.

Lago Blackwrench began to speak, but again Diello silenced him.

"Master Blackwrench," said Diello. "Tell me, do you possess any books on the history of Alterac?"

"Alterac?" said the Gnome distastefully.

Afraid that Blackwrench would deceive him out of spite, Diello slammed a handful of silver onto the table.

"Not necessary," said Blackwrench testily, nevertheless advancing to sweep the coins into his own satchel. "Try Alexander Calder. He is historian, not me. I am concerned with the present."

"Splendid. Many thanks, Master Blackwrench."

Diello exited and walked to the house of Alexander Calder, which was also on the shore of the Forlorn Cavern's cloudy blue lake. Calder was not unknown to Diello through his dealings with the Warlocks of Stormwind.

"Ah," said Calder, answering the door, "a fellow practitioner. I can smell it on you. Enter."

Diello did so. Calder's domicile was small and well-maintained, and there were several books on the dark arts displayed in plain view. An imp skulked in the corner. Calder himelf was tall and respectable-looking, with a scrupulously-maintained beard and a robe of a businesslike cut, albeit done up in the lurid scarlets, purples, and blacks frequently associated with the warlocks.

"I've been sent here by Sandahl of Stormwind. I seek only information."

"Sandahl. I know of him," said Calder. "I hold him in high esteem. Do you not as well?"

"Of course," said Diello.

Alexander Calder eyed him. "Good. You're lying. You know as well as I do that Sandahl is a double-dealing bastard, even for one of us. What information do you seek, and what can you provide in return for it?"

"I seek no information that is secret," said Diello, "and I will pay for it in plain silver." Diello knew better than to openly confirm Calder's assessment of Sandahl, although, inwardly, he did not waver for a moment in concurring with it.

"Very well," said Calder. "I assume, since you've obviously been referred to me, probably by Lago Blackwrench, that you wish to research some historical topic. Tell me, what are your criteria? Time? Third War, Second War, First War? Or before? Place? Azeroth, Kalimdor, Draenor, the Twisting Nether? The Emerald Dream? Or perhaps you seek a person?"

"A person, indeed," said Diello. "A man. Lord Vexistra of Alterac."

"Vexistra, Vexistra," said Calder. "Rings a bell, I believe. Follow me." Diello followed Calder, past the glowering imp, upstairs.

Calder's upstairs was an absolute mess of paper and ink, some of it bound, some of it not, and not a little of it somewhere in between.

Calder walked over to a pile of books, pushed the top of it off onto the floor, and selected from the newly shortened pile a brown, leatherbound volume embossed with silver. "_Alterac in the Second War_. Enjoy. Read it downstairs, incidentally, and don't try to copy anything out of it or remove it."

"No," said Diello. He took the volume downstairs and opened it. Its unblemished leather covers parted easily.

The first page bore the title and a color reproduction of the standard of Alterac: a black phoenix on an orange field.

Alterac and its ruler Baron Perenolde were renowned by the daylight folk as traitors and by the dark acolytes as idiots. During the Second War, Perenolde had forged a secret pact with the Orcs, assisting them in the hope of riches upon their victory. Inevitably, Perenolde had been found out. Alterac, so far as Diello knew, was now nothing more than another ruined battlefront. He flipped through the book. Perenolde had been imprisoned for his treason, and many of his lieutenants were put to death. But Perenolde had escaped, apparently disappearing, and had not been heard from since. This had been just prior to the onset of the Third War.

After some scanning (the book had no table of contents) Diello found the first mention of Lord Vexistra. Vexistra had found a meteoric rise through the Alterac military, blah blah blah, had engaged in complicity alongside his master, blah blah blah, and had become unexpectedly renowned for his abilities in alchemy.

_In fact, Vexistra is generally credited with having developed the use of the heartblood binding charm independent of Gul'dan's necrolytes._

Good, good. Either a mountain of coincidences to puzzle the Lich King himself had compounded, or it _had_ indeed been Vexistra who had lain down that circle, and who was the erstwhile possessor of that cloth-wrapped package in its center.

But what had Lord Vexistra been up to for all these years? According to the book, he had disappeared from an Alliance stockade almost eight years ago, at around the same time as Baron Perenolde.

Questions, questions.

What else had happened almost eight years ago? Well, quite a few things. Diello's parents had been slaughtered. Arthas had pledged his will to the Lich King. The Orcs had sailed to Kalimdor. Archimonde had appeared in Azeroth.

Arthas had…

Diello shook his head. This was all a waste of time. He only had a few more hours to go before he'd have to return to Kharanos to meet Skai and anyone she'd recruited, though looking at the crowds of buffoons that swelled in and out of the taverns of Ironforge, he rather doubted that she'd managed to locate anyone even verging on satisfactory.

What Diello needed to do was determine how to break the circle of binding. What kind of heartblood was needed? What did he have that Skai didn't? He wished that that idiot Greymantle had been present so Diello could have had his Voidwalker wring it out of him.

Diello returned the book to Calder, went back to Lago Blackwrench's dwelling, and resumed reading on heartblood and its applications.

Time slipped by so quickly, and he was exhausted. He turned his eyes away from the blurring pages and pinched the bridge of his nose. Just hours to go until he and Skai would set out for the cavern. Just hours to go.



Skai and Xavier burst through the double-doors of the Thunderbrew Distillery. Xavier pushed the doors shut, sealing out the steely coldness. They were both wrapped in fur cloaks which Skai had purchased from the Ironforge clothier's.

Belm walked up to Skai. "Miss Mistweaver. Yer friend's gone, and 'e's nae came back."

"To Ironforge?" asked Skai.

"Aye."

"He'll be back today, Belm. Xavier and I will need sitting room and something hot to drink." Skai fished around in her coin satchel. Between paying for the board she'd needed while recovering from the snow, and buying Gryphon rides to and from Stormwind, her coin satchel was getting light.

"Can do, can do, Missy," said Belm. "Mead for you?"

"A little," said Skai.

"And fer your friend?"

Xavier was busy unslinging his massive hammer and shield. He lay them by the door. "Oh, Thunderbrew lager for me, thanks!"

Belm left. Skai led Xavier to the back of the building, by the fire. Belm arrived with their drinks, and Skai was finally able to tell Xavier everything, or almost everything (Diello's story and a number of other details remained unmentioned) that had precipitated since their parting ways in Goldshire.

"Demon magic," said Xavier, shaking his head.

"Scourge magic," replied Skai. "That's what Diello identified it as."

"Diello," said Xavier. "Diello, Diello. Well-- don't misinterpret, Skai. From what you say of him, he's quite bold. However… do you really believe that we can trust to his integrity? I mean, he barters with demons. Is he beyond compromise?"

"Don't misinterpret him," said Skai. "Diello isn't particularly power-hungry. He has his own reasons for becoming a warlock, just as you have yours for becoming a Paladin. To be a mage, for him, would be as false as your becoming a farmhand, say."

"To compare a warlock to a farmhand is hardly proper."

"But my point is, perhaps Azeroth needs a farmer with a family more than it needs a Paladin. My point is, you are a Paladin not because it's the right thing to do, but because it's the one course true to your nature." Skai thought that she was starting to sound like Icharu: expansive.

The Paladin tossed his head uncomfortably and studied Skai by the firelight for some time. "That's a rationalization," he said finally.

Skai couldn't bring herself, at the moment, to fully consider whether or not he was right. "Regardless, you understand the risks as well as we do. Do you still elect to come with us?"

"Yes. To shy away from what may be an opportunity to engage both the Forsaken and the Scourge would be a grave misjudgment indeed."

"Excellent," said Skai. "Now all we must do is wait."

They sat in silence before the fire for a few minutes. Xavier stood and moved back and forth across the room, keeping his blood up, until he ran into Azar Stronghammer, the Paladin who had ministered to Diello, and they fell into an enthusiastic discussion of the protocols, accomplishments, and notable members of the Argent Dawn versus those of the Silver Hand.

Skai sat by the fire, reflecting for, if this expedition went as profoundly awry as the last one, quite possibly the very last time, on her experiences in Kalimdor. Those nights seemed so far away, although Icharu had called her aside to tell her of her departure little over a week ago. Already, Skai's world had expanded and altered, and so had she herself been changed. When she had realized what Diello was, a warlock, she had wanted to distance herself from him as quickly as possible. And although there was no denying that he did indeed toy with a dangerous fire, she had come to respect him and even to feel concern for him. She hated to speculate on how his own quest would end. From what she knew of him, he was faithless to the point of impracticality. He would refuse to subscribe to reason not because he truly felt that reason was arbitrary, but because, in his eyes, any vow of justice or care was pathetic, was an act of rallying against an infinitely onsweeping wave.

But, when Diello returned, he'd have researched the information necessary to neutralize the circle of binding and he, she, and Xavier would be able to retrieve the artifact, whatever it was, and return to safety. Assuming, of course, that they were able to find the cave again, that Vexistra or someone else had not gotten to it first, and that they weren't slain by Forsaken, Greymantle, or others on the way there.

Kalimdor. Its dark forests, its high-boughed trees that reached across its violet twilit sky, its shadowed glades… Skai had learned the value of becoming a traveler, but she promised herself that if she made it out of this alive, the very first thing she would do would be to sail back to Darnassus to have a cup of tea with Icharu and play fetch with Snickers. See Meridia. And put her feet up for a long, long time.

And the door of the distillery burst open and in came Diello, wide-eyed and frozen but most certainly alive. Belm and Thamner the physician rushed over, lauding him for having survived, and he was quite preoccupied for several seconds before noticing Skai.

"Oh, hello," he said.

"Diello," said Skai. "You've improved."

"Isn't that the truth?" said Diello with a laugh.

Xavier stepped up, regarding him carefully.

"Him?" asked Diello, pointing. "You must be kidding."

"We know he's no infiltrator," said Skai. "We _know_. He's never tried to cajole us into liking him. No offense meant."

"None taken, miss," said Xavier, not removing his eyes from Diello.

"Well," said Diello, "I guess we're going to have to hurry if we're going to beat _Veld Vexistra_ to the cave. Come with me and I'll tell you both what I know."

Xavier nodded, finally capitulating to the fact that Diello wasn't going to antagonize him. He walked to the door and picked up his warhammer and shield. Skai donned her own pack, unsnapping the latch around her axe, keeping it on the ready. She dressed in her Ironforge fur cloak, as did Xavier. Skai tossed Diello the cloak she'd purchased for him.

"I always wanted to train to wield the two-handed mace," said Diello.

"It's easy," said Xavier. "Just a matter of learning to control your arm and shoulder muscles."

"It seems that it should be. I mean, I'm a killer with a stave, no problem, but every time I've gone to train for the two-handed swords or the mace or even just the axe, it's gone nowhere."

"Odd," said Skai. She'd encountered something similar every time she'd attempted to learn how to wield a mace.

Diello slipped into his new cloak and, with a quick goodbye to Innkeeper Belm, they were out the door. Skai wondered fleetingly if she was ever going to see the inside of a proper building again.



As they trudged through the snow, Skai explained to him what she'd learned: the identity of the Gnome in the cavern, and the fact that she now knew the cavern to be located in Coldridge Valley. Diello told her of lord Vexistra of Alterac and his disappearance, and the various factors affecting circles of binding.

"But you don't actually know how we're to unseal the circle?"

"No!" said Diello. "But I know enough to make a guess or two, if it comes to that!"

Xavier seemed preoccupied. "You say that Vexistra disappeared about eight years ago?"

"Correct!" said Diello.

"Do you know when exactly?" asked Xavier, his words forming a billow of fog in the air.

Diello shook his head. "Autumn. Autumn, seven and a half years ago. There was no precise date."

"The call…" Xavier murmured something further to himself.

"I'm sorry?!" asked Diello over the cacophony of the winds.

"Seven and one half years ago, the Lich King arrived at the Icecrown Glacier in Northrend! Seven and one half years ago, the call of the Lich King sounded out across the world and all those deeply attuned to the ley-energies of the land sensed it. Those who wished to follow him, followed. I myself was too young, but Tirion Fordring, my teacher, was quite aware of it."

"You think Vexistra answered the call of the Lich King?" asked Diello.

They made their way over a ridge. According to the maps Skai had studied, they must now be entering Coldridge Valley, circumventing the sheltered but trogg-infested Coldridge Pass.

"It seems to fit!" said Xavier. "Vexistra and Perenolde, both notorious damned sell-outs, both disappear in tandem, at around the same time the Lich King is sounding off for recruits, and now Vexistra is here in force, sealing things away with Scourge magic! It fits!" He looked at Diello. "Doesn't it?"

"Seems to!" said Diello.

They moved, huddled down into their cloaks, through the pines of the valley. Skai scanned the ground before them. There was nothing, no sign of anyone else, and they kept moving, until--

Skai held up her hand. The others halted.

"What is it?" asked Diello.

"There's something up ahead." Skai wasn't certain if Human eyes could discern it yet, but there was, most clearly to her, a dark, rigid shape half-buried in the snow before them. Skai rushed ahead.

As she cleared away the snowdrift, Diello and Xavier fell in behind her. When Skai saw what the object was, she winced.

Dressed in his frayed black clothes, his hands frozen into claws of desperation as he slumped against the tree, was Greymantle.

Skai stood up and looked down almost piteously at him.

"Greymantle," she said. "I wonder what his real name was."

"Even he doesn't know now," said Xavier.


	8. Execution

They kept on. Eventually they reached the near-solid rock face of the mountains that formed the southern border of Coldridge Valley. They moved west along the mountain wall until, thanks to Skai's sharp eyes, they located the cavern.

As the trio filed into the frigid stillness, Skai scanned for signs that anyone had been here since they'd left. The undead still lay, putrefying, on the floor, as did the Gnome mage. There were no signs of disturbance.

Diello and Skai rushed into the back room, to the orange-cloth-wrapped parcel sealed in by the heartblood circle. Xavier kept watch of the entrance.

Diello paced back and forth almost frantically. Moisture dripped down the walls.

"What did they say?" said Diello. "They said that they could kill you, that it didn't matter. Then they realized that we were awake."

"Yes," said Skai. Then she paused. "That wasn't everything."

"What?"

"That wasn't everything Greymantle and the undead said. I must have awoken a moment before you did. They said that I wasn't something, but that you were."

Diello pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "What am I that you're not?"

"You're Human."

"I know, I know. But that Gnome girl wasn't, was she, now?."

"So what do you and she have that I don't?"

"Damn," said Diello. "Damn, damn, damn, that hadn't occurred to me." He hesitated for a split second, and then snapped his fingers. "We're spellcasters! The Gnome girl, Ab…zur…beeb--"

"Azurine."

"Yeah, yeah. She's a mage. I'm a 'lock. You use mana, true, but hardly enough for your blood to have become infused with it. You don't even _dabble_ in arcanism. So the way that we split this circle is by applying mana-infused heartblood."

"Where are we going to get mana-infused heartblood?"

Diello's eyes flickered out toward Xavier, waiting near the cave's mouth, and he laughed. "Um, hmm."

A moment of silence passed.

"Incoming! Incoming!" Xavier strafed to the side of the cave entrance. "Skai! Summon your pet! We've got company!"

Skai withdrew the statuette. "What is it?"

"Yellow eyes! Forsaken!"

Skai and Diello traded glances.

"The circle can wait. Get your Imp."

Diello nodded, then stopped. "That's it! You two hold them off for as long as you can!" He produced his two gourd-bottles: the turquoise and the quartz. With a trembling hand he began to draw a summoning circle on the ground.

Skai sped into the outer room of the cave. "Tal, asto're!" Snickers appeared again, this time looking no less confused. An arrow sailed through the mouth of the cave, harmlessly to pieces.

"They've got the entrance surrounded," said Xavier, gripping his warhammer anxiously. "They've been waiting for us."

"Vexistra! Veld Vexistra!" came a voice like cracked parchment. "An daegil ras nevren!"

"Common!" shouted Skai. "Speak Common, you fiends!" She didn't like her chances for getting Darnassian out of them.

There was a pause. "We will speak to Lord Vexistra!"

"Vexistra isn't in here!" shouted Skai.

There was another confused pause from the Forsaken. Skai glanced back at Diello and saw that the summoning circle was almost complete, rushed and flawed as it was.

"We have told you, Vexistra!" rasped the papery voice. "You must offer your sword as a token of fealty to us!"

Skai, Xavier, and Diello all looked up and then at one another. A token of fealty? Vexistra, who had heeded the call of the Lich King, was defecting to the Forsaken?

"Vexistra isn't in here!" shouted Skai.

"Go away!" added Diello, adding the finishing touch to the circle.

"We demand your sword, Vexistra!" came the voice again. "It was insult enough to her ladyship that you did not bring it to our rendezvous, but to refuse it now is nothing short of an act of hostility!"

A few more arrows sailed through the mouth of the cave: covering fire. An undead wielding two daggers came, hunched, into the cave. Xavier deftly burst its head with his warhammer.

Diello leant over his summoning circle, mumbled a few intonations, and stood back. The pink mist began to swarm. Diello drew his sword.

Two more Forsaken barreled in. Xavier struck one a glancing blow with his hammer, but the other passed through unscathed and swiveled at the back of the cave, facing them head-on. Xavier engaged the first one, it holding a mace and shield, and the two battered one another, neither giving ground. Another Forsaken entered, this one most ominously, Skai thought, holding no weapon at all, and wearing a brown robe.

Snickers was upon the second Forsaken in a flash, tearing at his ankle until he collapsed, and then clinging to his back and gnawing away at his neck flesh until he could manage nothing more than spasmodic kicking.

The unarmed Forsaken faced Skai.

"Immolate!"

Skai's vest burst into flame. She panicked, flailing it off of her body, it just a few burning fragments, and threw it away.

Kal'nos the imp danced into existence. Diello motioned for it to stay. He raised his hands against the mage.

"Agony!"

A ripple, almost invisible, shot through the air and into the Forsaken. There was no effect.

The warlock snickered gutturally, faced Skai again, and then began to shake wrackingly. With awful screams he collapsed and was set upon by Snickers.

Xavier had finally gained the upper hand over the mace-wielding undead, and had driven him back against the wall. Skai drew her rifle and blasted away the Forsaken's ankle. He fell, and with a single thudding blow, Xavier smashed his ribcage.

They looked at each other. Victory. But all three of them knew better than that.

"Wait," said Diello, drawing his sword. "Kal'nos, over here. Stand by the circle."

The imp chittered affirmatively and obeyed.

"Thanks," said Diello, and decapitated the imp. The imp's miniscule body fell, twitching, and Skai watched in horror and then in sudden, joyous relief as the imp's blood coursed over the boundary of the circle, staining it into an archway, and--

The blood stopped, and pooled, bubbling, on the cave floor. It only extended to the line running through the center of the circle.

"No!" shouted Diello. "No, no, no! This isn't one circle. It's two. The second is sealed with a completely different substance. Who knows how long it could take to break it! Damn it!" Diello flung his sword at the wall, and it ricocheted and clattered in the corner.

"Incoming! Incoming!" shouted Xavier again, and a trio of Forsaken barreled through the unguarded entrance: one flail-dragging warrior, one jawless rogue, and another spellcaster, this one in tattered red robes.

With stunning swiftness, Xavier charged the rogue, maiming him with a blow to the head and, as he fell, finishing him. Tiny chunks of desiccated brain matter rained down across the cave.

This gave even the Forsaken pause. Then the battle resumed, and Skai found herself facing a spellcaster once again.

Snickers leapt, snapping, for the spellcaster's ankles, but the Forsaken sidestepped and stared with piercing intensity at the hyena.

"Fear!"

Snickers yipped and began to run erratically around the cave, eventually ending up in a corner.

"Agony!"

A bolt like a bead of glass underwater, barely perceptible, rushed through Skai.

The warrior undead fell. Skai took a step back, looking down at herself where the curse had gone in.

"Immolate!"

But the burning clung to Xavier's armor and did no damage. Xavier swung a flaming arm down at the warlock and bashed him with his shield until he met with no more resistance.

Skai shuddered, wondering how long she had.

"Vexistra!" came the voice again. "Call off your soldiers! You are hopelessly outnumbered!"

Thick greenish blood oozed from the warlock undead's crushed face.

Suddenly, Skai knew.

"Diello!" She sprinted across the cave to him, dropping her rifle. "Diello, there's no second body. There's no second body. Vexistra must have sealed the second circle using his own bl--"

Roots of pain spread out through Skai's body, dominating her in less than a second, feeding on her own vitality. She saw two more undead rush in, and Xavier leapt to engage them. Then her vision was blotted out. It felt like every vein in her body was going to burst, that she was going to die in a splash of boiling blood, to die…

And then the pain was ebbing. She had survived the curse. Trembling, she got to her feet.

Xavier was dueling with one of the undead, who wielded two daggers, and Diello had raced out to drag an undead corpse into the back chamber. The second undead, a mage, fixed him with a predatory stare.

Diello leapt up.

"Immolate!"

The mage's robe combusted instantaneously. He raised his hands to cast a counterspell, but he was sputtering, smoking, dying with a hideous wheeze.

Snickers launched himself at the dual-wielding undead, and he and the Paladin brought it down. The floor was now heaped with dismembered Forsaken.

Diello reached down to an undead corpse and then, thinking better of it, simply picked up a severed hand and carried it back to the circle with him. Had Lord Vexistra sealed the inner circle with his own blood, then hopefully a second dose of undead blood, albeit Forsaken rather than Scourge, would be enough to undo the charm.

"Brace for the next wave!" called Xavier, flipping his hammer into the air and catching it.

Skai took a moment to call over Snickers and give him a scratch behind the ears. He'd saved more than one life today, qualifying him as a good boy by anyone's standards.

"Skai, look sharp! They won't be much longer!"

Diello was at the circle, massaging the goopy blood out of the stump and onto the ground. It worked. The blood pooled across the edge of the inner circle, and it was breached.

The heartblood circle was now no more than scribbling on the ground.

Diello stepped into the circle and lifted the orange bundle to his chest.

"It's too quiet. It's too quiet. Where are they?" Xavier risked a peek out the cave mouth. "Why aren't they coming?" Beneath his voice was no sound but the whistling of the wind.

Diello tossed away the orange cloth, the underside emblazoned with the phoenix emblem of Alterac. Underneath was a tremendous sword, its blade black and shining, its handle cushioned by leather of Human skin. The runes of blood, frost, and darkness ran up its sides. It was a runeblade. Even though Skai had never seen one before, it was somehow unmistakeable.

"_Lied_ to by my own soldiers…"

A shadow fell across the doorway. Xavier backed up.

"Convicted of _treason._ Sent to some gulag to rot. I heed another's call. I go to him in good faith, and with trust, and I am dispatched to some Lightforsaken battlefield in an infected scar of a place, little more than an infantryman. I was _High Chancellor!_ I am _Lord_ Vexistra! LORD Vexistra!"

The Death Knight slipped in through the doorway, his massive frame filling it, and entered the cavern. His hair was long and white, what was once an aristocratic beard now a collection of icy bristles on his chin. His eyes were liquid black. Skai looked into those eyes and braced herself.

"I apply for help. For _clemency_. And all they want to do is rob me of my one valuable possession. All I have left. And now I return, and find that, despite my best efforts, I have still been _robbed._ THIEVES!"

All three of them jumped. Snickers' hackles rose.

"Kaldorei!" bellowed Vexistra. "I will slay you and feed your soul to the darkness!"

Skai raised her axe, but Vexistra advanced in two massive steps and smacked it from her hand. His black velvet cloak swirled around him.

Skai staggered back. Vexistra raised another gauntlet as if to crush her where she stood but suddenly he hesitated. Skai returned to herself and rolled, picking up her rifle.

Snickers was on the Death Knight's back, tearing at his neck. Skai laughed despite herself as the Death Knight wheeled in fury.

Skai loaded her rifle in a flash and leveled it at Vexistra's head. She just needed Snickers out of the way in order to get a clear shot.

Vexistra grasped behind his head, finally seizing Snickers and raising him into the air. The Death Knight clenched his fist around the hyena and punched him into the wall, crushing his frontquarters to a pulp before he could whimper.

Skai said nothing. No battle cry would have been enough. She fired her rifle at Vexistra's head, and the shot sheared off a hank of his snowy white hair. Xavier approached, swinging his hammer, but the blow which landed against Vexistra's leg wasn't even enough to slow him down.

Vexistra would not be perturbed. He turned to Skai.

Skai didn't move. She stood, empty-handed, but unwilling to budge.

Vexistra loomed closer to her and he put his hand around her neck, raising her into the air. She kicked him in the chest, again and again, but her boots only rebounded off his black armor.

"You fool," he said. "Since the beginning of my life, people have stood between me and what is my right. Since the beginning of my life, I have been compelling these people to move. You are as a beetle to me, yet I must crush you. I must grind you and grind you until you have perished beyond all recognition."

She snarled at him with wordless fury.

Vexistra's grayish lips curled over his teeth. "Die now."

Skai felt his gauntlet begin to tighten around her windpipe.

"NO!"

Vexistra's grip faltered. He moved, perhaps to turn, perhaps just to shift his weight, but before he could, he was down. Diello kicked him over, raising the runeblade high, its length stained with dark blood.

"Die! Die! Die, you son of a bitch!" Diello brought the runeblade down again and again into the Death Knight's back until the adamantium of his armor was a canyon of blood-splashed gashes and he struggled to rise from the ground.

With a horrific scream, Diello brought the sword down on Lord Vexistra's neck. His head, trailing its long white hair, rolled across the cave and thudded macabrely against the wall.

Diello stood, panting, eyes wide and glassy. He looked down at the Death Knight's corpse, and then at the blade in his hand. As soon as he saw the blade he jolted and tossed it aside.

Diello staggered, and Xavier ran to support him. They both stood, eyes fixed on the terrible carcass of Andan Vexistra.

Skai looked at the bloody smear on the stone where Snickers had died. She could think of nothing, nothing to say that would make sense of it all, nothing. So she let her legs buckle, finally let go, finally gave herself over to release. She had been scarred, had been marked indelibly, and she would never heal.

Diello glanced up at her. "Skai--"

Skai's legs gave way and she fell into darkness.


	9. Interment

Dark, glassy waves lapped the sides of the boat. As Auberdine faded into the grayness, the vessel was alone. A slow, watery thunking, and the snap of the sails drawn taut by the wind was enough to fill the air.

Skai Mistweaver stood at the side of the boat, looking down at the rippling bluish jot that was her reflection.

When she'd come to in Kharanos, Diello and Xavier had been at her side.

"Khadgar's beard…!" said Diello. "I was so sure you were dead!"

"It's a talent," said Skai. "Feigning death."

The runeblade lay, bound up in Diello's gold cloak.

"I can't touch it again," said Diello. "From the moment that blade tasted blood, I could feel the Lich King speaking to me. Anyone who wields it is in danger of succumbing to Ner'zhul's call." He gave a coldened, comfortless glance to the sword.

"It should be destroyed," said Xavier.

Diello stood up, sipping from a stein of Thunderbrew lager. His face darkened in the firelight.

"No. To unmake this thing is a task far beyond any of us. And, truthfully, I cannot think of a single powerful spellcaster whom I would trust to destroy it."

"It must be taken, then," said Xavier, "and placed in the keeping of one who is wise enough to resist its draw."

"Who knows such a one?" asked Diello, shaking his head. He drained the stein and set it aside. The thinnest of smiles curved his lips. "You know… Ner'zhul wanted Vexistra dead almost as much as I did."

Skai remained still as the boat slid up to the shore of Teldrassil. She traveled to Darnassus in silence.

In the Temple Gardens she walked, eyes on the ground, drawing no attention from the milling Night Elves around her. She followed a trail of muddy pawprints.

The pawprints led to one of the small islands that rose above the water of the Temple ponds. Skai slowed.

The prints stopped. There, among the blades of grass, lay a small gray statuette. Skai took it up and walked somberly back out onto the pavement.



"Sandahl."

"Brother Diello."

The pyre blazed voraciously behind the warlocks of Stormwind City: Sandahl, his lined face piercingly intent, Demisette Cloyce, features hard beneath her immaculate black hair, Spackle Thornberry, the pink-haired Gnome shifting from foot to foot as he waited, Zardeth of the Black Claw, who remained rigid, his hands behind his back, and Gakin the Darkbinder, who snorted moodily. Never before had so many elder warlocks deigned to show Diello attention at the same time.

Diello nodded to all of them. "Brothers and sisters of the Nether. I have much to tell you."

"Do," said Sandahl. "Tell us, to what did Greymantle lead you?"

"Greymantle was in the pay of the Forsaken, and he brought me to a cavern wherein lay a very powerful circle of binding. Within the circle rested an artifact. It was not until two days ago that I learned what this artifact truly was."

"And what was it?" asked Sandahl, watching him intently.

Diello stood, the firelight shifting across his features. For a moment he seemed almost unsure, and Cloyce and Zardeth exchanged glances.

Diello cleared his throat. "It was the runeblade of Lord Vexistra the Death Knight."



Skai knelt among the towering deciduous trees beyond the Cenarion Enclave. She sighed, teeth clenched, and she pried up another spadeful of earth.

She pressed the carved figurine into the bottom of the hole, nestling it among the black particles of Kalimdor soil, and covered it up. When she had packed the last handful of soil into place, she stood back. There wasn't even a bump, just a patch of darkness where the grass had been turned up.

"Tal… asto're."

A mound grew in the earth. Skai regarded it for a moment and then began the walk back to the halls of the Enclave.



"You know your debt to us," said Sandahl. "You know in your heart what is owed. You know that we raised you from the meanest sprout so that you might flower into the bloom of darkness which you have now become. We have made you what you are. You cannot deny the service you owe us, which you may now, at last, pay."

Diello withdrew a dingy, gold-wrapped bundle from his pack. Cloyce and Zardeth exchanged glances again, though this time in anticipation.

"You have not allowed me to finish my story, brother," said Diello.

"I hardly think that whatever trivialities remain will be necessary to exposit," said Sandahl, grasping for the bundle.

"The Forsaken returned to the cavern before us," said Diello. "When we arrived, there was naught but a breached circle and the bodies of many undead."

_"What?"_ burst Sandahl.

Diello let the bundle unroll onto the floor. Within its folds lay two tremendous black pieces of armor.

"I present to you the black gauntlets of Lord Vexistra of the Scourge."

Sandahl looked from the gauntlets to Diello, enraged. "If you lie, if you _lie_ to us here, we all shall know it. If you ever draw that miserable blade from its scabbard within Azeroth's borders, we shall know it, and you will _die!_"

Cloyce and the others stared at him furiously. Gakin swigged from a hip flask.

"There is no deception occurring here today," said Diello. "That I promise you, brothers, on my very soul."

Cloyce prodded Sandahl in the back, and he took up the mighty gauntlets. "Should that be the case, although we lament your failing, we…thank you, brother."

"It was my pleasure, Sandahl." Diello extended his hand. Sandahl shook it very stiffly.

Diello ascended the stairs. Behind him, he heard incensed muttering.

"I want him _followed_!" hissed Sandahl's voice. "I want every one of our eyes watching him! I know he has it! I _know_ he has it! I want--"

Diello emerged into the moodily-lit entrance room of The Slaughtered Lamb. Jarel lazed behind the counter, only half coming to attention when he noticed Diello.

"Anything to drink?" asked Jarel.

Diello was about to refuse, but then he paused. "Why not."

Jarel stood up, almost taken aback. "And, er, what will it be?" He flicked one of his braids out of the collar of his shirt.

Diello shrugged. "Pinot Noir."

Jarel poured Diello a goblet of the dark liquid. Diello took a swig and swirled it around in its mouth, relishing its flavor.

"You seem happy today, Diello."

"Happy?" Diello took another slow draw of the wine. "Maybe not so much happy as… free."

"Free to do what you like, you mean?"

Diello looked at Jarel, who regarded him ingenuously. _He knows about the sword,_ thought Diello. _He thinks that I have it._

"Maybe," said Diello. He stayed there and savored his wine, finishing it under the hopeful gaze of Jarel. Diello stood, finally, and dropped a fifty copper piece onto the counter.

Diello left The Slaughtered Lamb and emerged into the sunlight. Visoring his eyes, he walked through the Mage Quarter, through the rush of robed figures, and out along the canals. The morning sun sparkled from their clear waters, disturbed only by a scentless breeze.

Diello walked along the outer edge of the Trade District. The purple roofs became blue.

And then Diello, passing through a crowd of priests who regarded him warily, entered the gold-roofed Cathedral Square.

The Cathedral of Light's bell tolled once, twice, five, ten times. Diello remained at the foot of the Cathedral's steps as the Paladins-in-training exited, they too regarding him uneasily.

Down the steps, brushing his hair out of his eyes, came Xavier.

"Good morning," said Diello.

Xavier, sun-blinded for a moment, squinted at Diello. "Oh. Good morning, Diello. New robes?"

"Mm," said Diello, looking down at his silver-trimmed black robes. "I thought I'd splash out."

"Come," said Xavier, leading Diello out toward the Trade District. "Tell me, where did you find the money for such decadent raiment?"

Diello laughed off the snipe. "You'd scarcely believe what some Nether-obsessed gnomes would pay for a Death Knight's belt."

"His belt?"

Diello nodded. "Little chance of new evil being released into the world by that piece of memorabilia, I think."

They walked in silence through the clamor of commerce in the Trade District. Xavier led Diello up the flight of steps to Dungar Longdrink's Gryphon aviary.

"You're going somewhere?" asked Diello.

"Yes," said Xavier. "The operatives of the Argent Dawn have uncovered a plot you shall scarcely believe until you see it for yourself. Thousands of lives are jeopardized. Hundreds of thousands."

"Until _I_ see it?" asked Diello.

"Yes," said Xavier. "Assuming Vexistra's belt wasn't meant to finance your retirement."

Diello grinned and clapped his hand into Xavier's. "Magnificent."

Xavier approached Dungar Longdrink. "We'll need two transports to Light's Hope Chapel in the Plaguelands."



"As soon as I heard, I knew that you deserved to be congratulated personally. The Death Knights are generals in Ner'zhul's army, and you have no doubt left a legion of ghouls, somewhere, leaderless and impotent. Would that I had more soldiers like you, Mistweaver."

"My thanks, Archdruid."

Fandral Staghelm clasped his massive, bark-gauntleted hands. He fixed Skai with a studying gaze.

"It is indeed a pity that the Death Knight's blade was lost to the Forsaken. Much could have been learned from such an implement."

Skai nodded. "Pity indeed."

Staghelm nodded back. "Elune'Adore, huntress. I anticipate news of your future exploits."

"Enshu'falah'nah, Archdruid."

Staghelm turned and strode back toward the Cenarion Enclave, leaving Skai and Icharu alone. Skai let a moment pass, just listening to the calls of the Kalimdorian birds, the wind rustling through familiar leaves.

"I hardly think anything needs be said," said Icharu.

"I agree," said Skai, "and yet there is one more thing, Shan'do."

Skai returned to the tree where her pack rested, and picked up the bundle she had brought with her, a bunch of firewood, Azerothian branches, bound up with thick white rope. She brought it to Icharu and pressed it into his arms.

The bundle was very, very heavy.

Icharu's eyes widened.

"You must protect it. You must keep it unknown. To _all_. Until the day Icecrown falls."

"Very… very well. I know of a vault in the heart of Darnassus where it will remain well-secreted."

"My thanks, Shan'do. My deepest thanks. And now I must bid you Elune'Adore. I will write to you as often as I can." Skai walked back to the tree and shouldered her travel pack.

"You will be traveling again so soon, Thero'shan?" asked Icharu, looking up from the bundled runeblade.

"I want to see Astranaar again. But after that? Yes," said Skai, breaking into a smile. "Of course I will."


End file.
